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Can't Sleep; Too Much Nostalgia
Posted 11 years agoWhy does it always seem to be the middle of the night when I start thinking of lost friends and good times gone by?
Lisinyuči!
Posted 12 years agoPilimawilalu "conlang," turakaci Riktas. Kiciyis niya: http://conlang.wikia.com/wiki/Riktas
The Importance of Singing
Posted 12 years agoI recently checked a book out of the local public library (remember those?) called Flutes of Fire, which is basically a collection of essays about the native languages of California. I'd whole-heartedly recommend it to anybody interested in Linguistics; I'm no expert in the field myself, but the book has been a fascinating and informative read without being so technical as to be difficult for me to understand.
Perhaps the most interesting chapter so far, for me at least, was actually the first one, but before I talk about that I think I should say a little bit about singing. I, personally, can't sing, at least not in any way that anyone would want to listen to, and in my day-to-day life it would be pretty unusual for me to run into somebody who was. For the most part, the people I know and have grown up with aren't comfortable singing around other people, even close friends and family, and I'm not sure that many of them ever sing when they're alone, either. Singing just doesn't seem to be something that many "regular" people do, except maybe in karaoke bars, and that's mostly considered a somewhat embarrassing joke.
This state of affairs seems to be something of an anomaly in the history of the world and its diverse cultures. Even a casual reading of traditional anthropology shows that in many if not most cultures singing is something that people do on an everyday basis. Songs have been tremendously important in many Native American cultures, where they are often tied to religious ritual and traditional healing practices, in Aboriginal Australia, where people traditionally navigated the often inhospitable landscape by following directions encoded in song, and even Ancient Greece, often credited as the birthplace of western culture, where epics like the Illiad and the Odyssey were sung from memory with instrumental accompaniment.
There might be any number of reasons for singing's importance in so many societies. Before the advent of mass media, people had to find ways to entertain themselves and those around them during idle hours or to take their minds off of onerous labor. Singing has been shown to help reduce stress and thereby improve both mood and immune function, and helps regulate breathing when performing strenuous exercise. Singing is also a fairly intimate form of social interaction, which is probably why so many people aren't very comfortable doing it around others, and might help to build and reinforce bonds of community and trust.
Getting back to what I was originally talking about, the first chapter of Flutes of Fire details a meeting between a group of Diegueño people (Native Americans who trace their ancestry through the inhabitants of Mission San Diego) from Southern California and the Kiliwas, a people who live in northern Baja California and speak a language related to the three spoken by the Diegueños.
Now, the languages spoken by these two groups of people have probably been developing separately from one another for at least 600 years. Their homes were separated by more than 100 miles of rugged and frequently inhospitable terrain, and for more than 100 years by an international and linguistic border as well. Both had suffered the impact of centuries of colonization; today there are estimated to be only around 10 native speakers of Kiliwa, while the languages of the Diegueños together may have as many as 110 speakers in the United States and a somewhat smaller number in Mexico. Furthermore, their lifestyles were radically different; these Diegueños lived in the city of San Diego and spoke fluent English, while the Kiliwa were, at the time, still relatively isolated from Mexican society at large, continued to eat mostly wild foods, and for the most part spoke no language besides their own.
It is not terribly surprising, then, that the Diegueños and the Kiliwas were mostly unable to understand each other's speech. That's not to say they were unable to communicate, however, because even after a century or more of separation, they all knew the same songs. Here were people who had never met before, shared at most a handful of words, and practically had less in common than two random people selected from any two modern cities in the world, and yet within less than an hour they were singing together with perfect ease. They even taught each other new songs in the same familiar genres, without the need for any non-lyrical explanation.
From the early days of colonial California, visitors and settlers from Europe, Mexico, and the United States have commented on the almost incredible diversity of the native languages. Traveling a distance shorter than many a modern Californian's daily commute, one could go from familiar territory into that of a people whose speech was almost totally alien. And yet, the archaeological record and the recorded testimonies of native peoples show that vigorous networks of trade extended to every corner of the state and beyond, carrying valuable goods like quarried obsidian, finely-carved soapstone tools and ornaments, and various types of shell bead "money" hundreds of miles from their site of manufacture.
It seems that, from prehistoric times, this kind of trade, as well as many other sorts of interactions both known and forgotten, was facilitated at least in part through the use of songs. Despite romanticized modern depictions, the peoples of the Americas were much like people anywhere else in that they frequently came into conflict with one another, and by announcing themselves and their peaceful intentions in song, travelers could hope to find a warmer reception in places where that song was recognized. Indeed, a fair amount of information could be conveyed in some of these songs, despite the fact that many contained no intelligible words at all. Genres of song recognized across linguistic boundaries could themselves be viewed as languages in some ways, or at least as codes for facilitating certain kinds of formalized interactions.
And I think that's really cool. >_>
Perhaps the most interesting chapter so far, for me at least, was actually the first one, but before I talk about that I think I should say a little bit about singing. I, personally, can't sing, at least not in any way that anyone would want to listen to, and in my day-to-day life it would be pretty unusual for me to run into somebody who was. For the most part, the people I know and have grown up with aren't comfortable singing around other people, even close friends and family, and I'm not sure that many of them ever sing when they're alone, either. Singing just doesn't seem to be something that many "regular" people do, except maybe in karaoke bars, and that's mostly considered a somewhat embarrassing joke.
This state of affairs seems to be something of an anomaly in the history of the world and its diverse cultures. Even a casual reading of traditional anthropology shows that in many if not most cultures singing is something that people do on an everyday basis. Songs have been tremendously important in many Native American cultures, where they are often tied to religious ritual and traditional healing practices, in Aboriginal Australia, where people traditionally navigated the often inhospitable landscape by following directions encoded in song, and even Ancient Greece, often credited as the birthplace of western culture, where epics like the Illiad and the Odyssey were sung from memory with instrumental accompaniment.
There might be any number of reasons for singing's importance in so many societies. Before the advent of mass media, people had to find ways to entertain themselves and those around them during idle hours or to take their minds off of onerous labor. Singing has been shown to help reduce stress and thereby improve both mood and immune function, and helps regulate breathing when performing strenuous exercise. Singing is also a fairly intimate form of social interaction, which is probably why so many people aren't very comfortable doing it around others, and might help to build and reinforce bonds of community and trust.
Getting back to what I was originally talking about, the first chapter of Flutes of Fire details a meeting between a group of Diegueño people (Native Americans who trace their ancestry through the inhabitants of Mission San Diego) from Southern California and the Kiliwas, a people who live in northern Baja California and speak a language related to the three spoken by the Diegueños.
Now, the languages spoken by these two groups of people have probably been developing separately from one another for at least 600 years. Their homes were separated by more than 100 miles of rugged and frequently inhospitable terrain, and for more than 100 years by an international and linguistic border as well. Both had suffered the impact of centuries of colonization; today there are estimated to be only around 10 native speakers of Kiliwa, while the languages of the Diegueños together may have as many as 110 speakers in the United States and a somewhat smaller number in Mexico. Furthermore, their lifestyles were radically different; these Diegueños lived in the city of San Diego and spoke fluent English, while the Kiliwa were, at the time, still relatively isolated from Mexican society at large, continued to eat mostly wild foods, and for the most part spoke no language besides their own.
It is not terribly surprising, then, that the Diegueños and the Kiliwas were mostly unable to understand each other's speech. That's not to say they were unable to communicate, however, because even after a century or more of separation, they all knew the same songs. Here were people who had never met before, shared at most a handful of words, and practically had less in common than two random people selected from any two modern cities in the world, and yet within less than an hour they were singing together with perfect ease. They even taught each other new songs in the same familiar genres, without the need for any non-lyrical explanation.
From the early days of colonial California, visitors and settlers from Europe, Mexico, and the United States have commented on the almost incredible diversity of the native languages. Traveling a distance shorter than many a modern Californian's daily commute, one could go from familiar territory into that of a people whose speech was almost totally alien. And yet, the archaeological record and the recorded testimonies of native peoples show that vigorous networks of trade extended to every corner of the state and beyond, carrying valuable goods like quarried obsidian, finely-carved soapstone tools and ornaments, and various types of shell bead "money" hundreds of miles from their site of manufacture.
It seems that, from prehistoric times, this kind of trade, as well as many other sorts of interactions both known and forgotten, was facilitated at least in part through the use of songs. Despite romanticized modern depictions, the peoples of the Americas were much like people anywhere else in that they frequently came into conflict with one another, and by announcing themselves and their peaceful intentions in song, travelers could hope to find a warmer reception in places where that song was recognized. Indeed, a fair amount of information could be conveyed in some of these songs, despite the fact that many contained no intelligible words at all. Genres of song recognized across linguistic boundaries could themselves be viewed as languages in some ways, or at least as codes for facilitating certain kinds of formalized interactions.
And I think that's really cool. >_>
Did you know?
Posted 12 years agoThe International Phonetic Alphabet is a system of phonetic notation designed with the intention of creating a standardized set of characters that each correspond to one and only one sound in spoken language. The need for such a notation system in linguistic studies comes from the difficulty of representing pronunciation in existing phonetic alphabets.
For instance, in English the Latin letter "a" can represent totally different sounds in different words, like "hat" and "sofa." In the IPA, the a in hat is represented as [æ], while the a in sofa is represented as [ə].
Likewise, different languages make use different sets of sounds, so the IPA has a larger number of characters than most phonetic writing systems. A familiar example would be that the standard Japanese language doesn't use the sounds usually represented by the English letters "r" and "l" (represented in the IPA as [ɹ] and [l]), such that native Japanese speakers sometimes substitute a sound that can vary between [ɾ] (close the the "dd" in "buddy") and [ɺ] (close the the "l" in "love"). These sounds, on the other hand, are rarely used in most dialects of English except possibly in certain unusual cases, so English speakers often have trouble with the Japanese リュウ (transliterated as "ryū"; IPA [ɾju]).
Of course, the IPA isn't perfect; the sound in Japanese that I've been describing can be represented by more than one IPA character, while Japanese speakers consider it a single sound. Likewise, there are sounds in some languages that don't have characters in the IPA. The system has been revised many times, and will surely be revised again in the future.
Nevertheless, the IPA is a remarkably complete system with which one can show pronunciation in any language, if not always with perfect accuracy. It takes some practice to get used to the symbols, since most of them are based on Latin characters that aren't necessarily used the way they are in English. The harder part is actually figuring out how to pronounce each character yourself, since they may require you to use your tongue, lips, vocal chords, and so forth in ways that you're not used to. If you're a big nerd like me, though, it can be a lot of fun, and there are sound clips online so you can practice.
-[kætduːm], for [fɝəˈfɪnɪti]
For instance, in English the Latin letter "a" can represent totally different sounds in different words, like "hat" and "sofa." In the IPA, the a in hat is represented as [æ], while the a in sofa is represented as [ə].
Likewise, different languages make use different sets of sounds, so the IPA has a larger number of characters than most phonetic writing systems. A familiar example would be that the standard Japanese language doesn't use the sounds usually represented by the English letters "r" and "l" (represented in the IPA as [ɹ] and [l]), such that native Japanese speakers sometimes substitute a sound that can vary between [ɾ] (close the the "dd" in "buddy") and [ɺ] (close the the "l" in "love"). These sounds, on the other hand, are rarely used in most dialects of English except possibly in certain unusual cases, so English speakers often have trouble with the Japanese リュウ (transliterated as "ryū"; IPA [ɾju]).
Of course, the IPA isn't perfect; the sound in Japanese that I've been describing can be represented by more than one IPA character, while Japanese speakers consider it a single sound. Likewise, there are sounds in some languages that don't have characters in the IPA. The system has been revised many times, and will surely be revised again in the future.
Nevertheless, the IPA is a remarkably complete system with which one can show pronunciation in any language, if not always with perfect accuracy. It takes some practice to get used to the symbols, since most of them are based on Latin characters that aren't necessarily used the way they are in English. The harder part is actually figuring out how to pronounce each character yourself, since they may require you to use your tongue, lips, vocal chords, and so forth in ways that you're not used to. If you're a big nerd like me, though, it can be a lot of fun, and there are sound clips online so you can practice.
-[kætduːm], for [fɝəˈfɪnɪti]
Did you know...
Posted 12 years agothat "xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłskʷc̓" is a word in the Salishan language of Nuxálk? Spoken by the native people in the vicinity of Bella Coola, British Columbia, Nuxálk is famous for utilizing long strings of consonant sounds without any intervening vowel or other sonorant sounds (like m, n, w, j, l, or r, which some languages, including dialects of english, use sort of like vowels).
Xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłskʷc̓, which roughly corresponds to the English phrase "he had in his possession a bunchberry plant," has proven difficult for linguists to classify because it contains none of the sounds that usually help separate distinct syllables from each other. Using the symbology of the International Phonetic Alphabet, the word is pronounced as xɬpʼχʷɬtʰɬpʰɬːskʷʰt͡sʼ, though I have yet to find an audio or video sample of anyone actually pronouncing the word.
There are many more examples of words containing only consonants in Nuxálk. Perhaps the easiest to pronounce (at least for English speakers) is "sxs," which means "seal fat." Since it uses IPA symbols, the "x" in that word is pronounced like the ch in the Scottish word "loch," but with a little practice it's not too hard to say.
Xłp̓x̣ʷłtłpłłskʷc̓, which roughly corresponds to the English phrase "he had in his possession a bunchberry plant," has proven difficult for linguists to classify because it contains none of the sounds that usually help separate distinct syllables from each other. Using the symbology of the International Phonetic Alphabet, the word is pronounced as xɬpʼχʷɬtʰɬpʰɬːskʷʰt͡sʼ, though I have yet to find an audio or video sample of anyone actually pronouncing the word.
There are many more examples of words containing only consonants in Nuxálk. Perhaps the easiest to pronounce (at least for English speakers) is "sxs," which means "seal fat." Since it uses IPA symbols, the "x" in that word is pronounced like the ch in the Scottish word "loch," but with a little practice it's not too hard to say.
BDSM Test
Posted 12 years agoA guy I know here on FA posted his results from a BDSM-themed personality test in his journal, and I was bored, so I've done the same. :P
I can't say that the results are particularly surprising or enlightening, but it was kind of nostalgic doing one of these; I think I remember them being kind of popular when I was in high school.
You Scored as Submissive
Submissive 96%
Experimental 82%
Masochist 79%
Degradation 75%
Exhibitionist / Voyeur 71%
Bondage 71%
Switch 57%
Sadist 54%
Vanilla 25%
Dominant 14%
I can't say that the results are particularly surprising or enlightening, but it was kind of nostalgic doing one of these; I think I remember them being kind of popular when I was in high school.
You Scored as Submissive
Submissive 96%
Experimental 82%
Masochist 79%
Degradation 75%
Exhibitionist / Voyeur 71%
Bondage 71%
Switch 57%
Sadist 54%
Vanilla 25%
Dominant 14%
Superman and the Mythic Hero
Posted 12 years agoSo, after seeing a couple of people comment on my short review of "Man of Steel," I got to thinking about how one would go about writing and interesting story about a basically invincible and fundamentally good-natured hero. Now, I know next to nothing about superhero comics, but I've seen a lot of Superhero movies, and many of them fail because the lead character just isn't that interesting. One idea that struck me, however, is that perhaps we don't need to update or modernize these characters so much as we need to return to their roots and learn from the classics.
More or less scholarly commentators on popular culture have made much of the idea that superheroes, and action heroes in general, are modern America's equivalent to the heroes that populate the myths and epics of the ancient world. While there's certainly some truth to that idea, the heroes of today's summer blockbusters are a far cry from Heracles or Achilles.
To focus on one example, Heracles was probably the closest classical analogue to a Superman-type character: invincible in battle, impossibly strong, and (mostly) virtuous by the standards of his time. Ultimately, however, he is a tragic figure, and is story is driven by encounters with forces he can't control.
As a youth, Heracles kills his music teacher by hitting him with a lyre in a momentary fit of anger. Later he's driven mad by the goddess Hera for a crime that wasn't even his own, which leads to him murdering his own wife and children. When he recovers, he is desperate to make amends, but the Oracle proclaims that his penance is to serve under a cruel King who not only assigns him tasks he believes are impossible, but cheats him into performing extra labors as well.
These events get us to sympathize with Heracles, and to identify with him, because getting cheated, making bad choices we later regret, and dealing with forces beyond our control are all pretty universal parts of the human experience. The storytellers of ancient Greece manage to get us to root for a nigh-invincible demigod because he's the underdog, which is a pretty clever trick.
Now, I'm not saying that superheroes should be murderers or psychopaths or driven by angst over a dark past; that's been done to death already, and it rarely worked to begin with. What I'm saying is that if you want an audience to become invested in a character, you have to show us his weakness *before* you show us his strength. Don't give us Superman as a paragon of heroism from the get-go; show him falter, and fail, and make mistakes; have him get tricked and taken advantage of.
Don't make him bitter, but have him doubt himself from time to time; have him ask for help and not know what to do; make him an honest guy trying to do his best in a world that, even with all his powers, he ultimately can't control.
Show us our own frailties in the character, so that when he triumphs in the end, his victory is *our* victory.
--
Of course, none of this really applies if you have access to Robert Downey jr. You can cast him as an asshole genius billionaire who spends most of his time partying and having sex, have him beat up on a fat, aging Jeff Bridges, and we'll *still* love him for some reason. :P
More or less scholarly commentators on popular culture have made much of the idea that superheroes, and action heroes in general, are modern America's equivalent to the heroes that populate the myths and epics of the ancient world. While there's certainly some truth to that idea, the heroes of today's summer blockbusters are a far cry from Heracles or Achilles.
To focus on one example, Heracles was probably the closest classical analogue to a Superman-type character: invincible in battle, impossibly strong, and (mostly) virtuous by the standards of his time. Ultimately, however, he is a tragic figure, and is story is driven by encounters with forces he can't control.
As a youth, Heracles kills his music teacher by hitting him with a lyre in a momentary fit of anger. Later he's driven mad by the goddess Hera for a crime that wasn't even his own, which leads to him murdering his own wife and children. When he recovers, he is desperate to make amends, but the Oracle proclaims that his penance is to serve under a cruel King who not only assigns him tasks he believes are impossible, but cheats him into performing extra labors as well.
These events get us to sympathize with Heracles, and to identify with him, because getting cheated, making bad choices we later regret, and dealing with forces beyond our control are all pretty universal parts of the human experience. The storytellers of ancient Greece manage to get us to root for a nigh-invincible demigod because he's the underdog, which is a pretty clever trick.
Now, I'm not saying that superheroes should be murderers or psychopaths or driven by angst over a dark past; that's been done to death already, and it rarely worked to begin with. What I'm saying is that if you want an audience to become invested in a character, you have to show us his weakness *before* you show us his strength. Don't give us Superman as a paragon of heroism from the get-go; show him falter, and fail, and make mistakes; have him get tricked and taken advantage of.
Don't make him bitter, but have him doubt himself from time to time; have him ask for help and not know what to do; make him an honest guy trying to do his best in a world that, even with all his powers, he ultimately can't control.
Show us our own frailties in the character, so that when he triumphs in the end, his victory is *our* victory.
--
Of course, none of this really applies if you have access to Robert Downey jr. You can cast him as an asshole genius billionaire who spends most of his time partying and having sex, have him beat up on a fat, aging Jeff Bridges, and we'll *still* love him for some reason. :P
Just Saw "Man of Steel"
Posted 12 years ago...and I probably should have waited for it to come out on video. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of really well done action scenes, and the writers had some good ideas about how to do something interesting with such a timeworn and oft-dismissed member of our pop-culture pantheon.
They also spend a while trying to make Superman into Jesus, but they seem to abandon that about halfway though when they realize that coming back from the dead isn't one of Superman's powers, so they can't actually kill him off. It'd make it a lot harder for them to make a Justice League movie. :P
Anyway, you could probably make a pretty good movie out of parts of this one... but it would be a much, much shorter film.
I don't want to go on and on, but there are a couple of scenes that really stand out to me in their badness. Spoilers follow.
In one, young Clark Kent gets his big tragic character development moment (because nobody can have a happy childhood *and* be a superhero) when his adoptive father gets killed by a tornado, and superboy doesn't save him because "the world isn't ready" for him to reveal himself. Setting aside that, by that point, basically everybody in Smallville pretty much already knows he's super, what really bugs me is the *reason* that Pa Kent had to die. You see, everybody else in the area hid under a freeway overpass and was safe. But the old farmer had to go back to save the family dog.
It's okay though. The scene is shot so that we know that the dog makes it.
...seriously? When an idiot gets himself killed for a transparently stupid reason in a movie, that's not tragedy. Heck, if they had just gotten the cast to overact a little more, it might have made a fairly amusing comedy sketch.
"Oh no Pa! While fleeing a tornado we somehow locked our beloved dog in the car!"
*wheeze* "Not to worry Clark, I'll just mosey on over there and let 'er out. Now where'd I put my walker..."
The other scene is pretty easy to miss, but it bugged the hell out of me. During a fight between Superman and a nameless evil Kryptonian chick, NEKC spouts off the following one-liner. Keep in mind that this movie is being heavily marketed to churchgoers, to the point of distributing superman-themed sermon outlines to pastors:
"You have a sense of morality, and I do not. That gives me an evolutionary advantage, and as history shows us... evolution always wins!"
I just, I can't... nnnngg *strokes out*
They also spend a while trying to make Superman into Jesus, but they seem to abandon that about halfway though when they realize that coming back from the dead isn't one of Superman's powers, so they can't actually kill him off. It'd make it a lot harder for them to make a Justice League movie. :P
Anyway, you could probably make a pretty good movie out of parts of this one... but it would be a much, much shorter film.
I don't want to go on and on, but there are a couple of scenes that really stand out to me in their badness. Spoilers follow.
In one, young Clark Kent gets his big tragic character development moment (because nobody can have a happy childhood *and* be a superhero) when his adoptive father gets killed by a tornado, and superboy doesn't save him because "the world isn't ready" for him to reveal himself. Setting aside that, by that point, basically everybody in Smallville pretty much already knows he's super, what really bugs me is the *reason* that Pa Kent had to die. You see, everybody else in the area hid under a freeway overpass and was safe. But the old farmer had to go back to save the family dog.
It's okay though. The scene is shot so that we know that the dog makes it.
...seriously? When an idiot gets himself killed for a transparently stupid reason in a movie, that's not tragedy. Heck, if they had just gotten the cast to overact a little more, it might have made a fairly amusing comedy sketch.
"Oh no Pa! While fleeing a tornado we somehow locked our beloved dog in the car!"
*wheeze* "Not to worry Clark, I'll just mosey on over there and let 'er out. Now where'd I put my walker..."
The other scene is pretty easy to miss, but it bugged the hell out of me. During a fight between Superman and a nameless evil Kryptonian chick, NEKC spouts off the following one-liner. Keep in mind that this movie is being heavily marketed to churchgoers, to the point of distributing superman-themed sermon outlines to pastors:
"You have a sense of morality, and I do not. That gives me an evolutionary advantage, and as history shows us... evolution always wins!"
I just, I can't... nnnngg *strokes out*
"Lovecraftian"
Posted 12 years agoI just saw somebody online describe the Nicholas Cage movie "Knowing" as "Lovecraftian," and it made me realize just how little that word seems to mean.
SPOILERS
"Knowing" is a movie where Earth gets burned up by a solar flare, but some people manage to survive because a little girl got warnings beamed into her head 50 years earlier by aliens while she was staring at the sun. Also, Nick Cage frantically does math for some reason.
Looking at the plot summary, I think that "Knowing" actually provides an excellent set of examples of things that *aren't* Lovecraftian that we can use to approach a definition of the term through process of negation. Let's try it:
1. In Lovecraft stories, having special insight into the future or the workings of the universe is pretty much never a good thing. In "Knowing," seeing the future helps some people escape from a disaster. In The Call of Cthulhu, Lovecraft writes that "The most merciful thing in the world... is the inability of the human mind to correlate it's contents," because, if we ever gain a true understanding of the universe as a whole, "we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
This is because, in Lovecraft's fiction, knowing the true nature of the universe means realizing that truly awful things are going to happen, and that the human race can do literally nothing to prevent them. Which leads us to...
2. In Lovecraft stories, the aliens are not your friends. In the end of "Knowing," mysterious aliens take the surviving humans to an Eden-like planet where they can start anew. By contrast, the most sympathetic aliens in Lovecraft might be the "old ones" (he used that term a lot) from At the Mountains of Madness, who murder an entire camp full of humans not out of malice or indifference, but in the spirit of scientific investigation. Or perhaps one prefers the Yithians from The Shadow Out of Time, who will just trade bodies with you for a few years and probably ruin your life, before returning you to your own body and erasing your memory, leaving you with amnesia and a lifetime of nightmares. This, of course, just goes to show that...
3. There are no happy endings in Lovecraft stories. Don't get me wrong, the protagonists of his tales frequently triumph over the horrible alien forces they encounter; in The Dunwitch Horror Dr. Armitage and company manage to banish the titular monster from the earth, while Cthulhu is famously put back to sleep when he gets a boat rammed through him. The climax of these stories, however, doesn't mark their *end,* and in the denouement the "victorious" characters are left haunted with the knowledge that they have, at best, bought the human world a little more time, for they have seen the truth in the ravings of mad cultists and gained a glimpse of the fate of the world. Speaking of which...
4. Lovecraft never destroyed the world. Okay, that's not strictly true; in the prose-poem Nyarlathotep (one of my favorite works by Lovecraft, by the way) the titular character seems to bring about the apocalypse. Most Lovecraft stories, however, don't have such cosmic consequences. Indeed, for all their hideous revalations about the nature of man's relationship with the universe, protagonists in Lovecraft stories usually grapple with horrors of which the rest of the world remains blissfully unaware, their struggles going completely unnoticed and leaving them with no lasting injuries or other tangible evidence of what they've experienced.
And that is as it should be, because the horror in Lovecraft's best stories doesn't come from the threat of death; It comes from the threat of truth. It comes from the agony of having to live out the rest of your natural life knowing that there is no hope, that all the works of mankind are utterly insignificant and will some day pass away without the universe taking notice, and that the only real gods are uncaring cosmic forces who either don't notice us at all or view us the way a biologist might study a bacterium under a slide.
In the end, I think, that's what really makes Lovecraft's best stories resonate with us 80 years or more after they were written; what makes them "Lovecraftian". Even with all of their tentacled horrors and eldrich tomes and other trappings of the "weird," Lovecraft's stories force us to consider our world for what it is: a thin crust of living matter clinging to a tiny, fragile speck of rock whirling about one of billions of stars in a vast and largely unknowable universe. And even as jaded as we have become, that's still a pretty unsettling thought.
SPOILERS
"Knowing" is a movie where Earth gets burned up by a solar flare, but some people manage to survive because a little girl got warnings beamed into her head 50 years earlier by aliens while she was staring at the sun. Also, Nick Cage frantically does math for some reason.
Looking at the plot summary, I think that "Knowing" actually provides an excellent set of examples of things that *aren't* Lovecraftian that we can use to approach a definition of the term through process of negation. Let's try it:
1. In Lovecraft stories, having special insight into the future or the workings of the universe is pretty much never a good thing. In "Knowing," seeing the future helps some people escape from a disaster. In The Call of Cthulhu, Lovecraft writes that "The most merciful thing in the world... is the inability of the human mind to correlate it's contents," because, if we ever gain a true understanding of the universe as a whole, "we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
This is because, in Lovecraft's fiction, knowing the true nature of the universe means realizing that truly awful things are going to happen, and that the human race can do literally nothing to prevent them. Which leads us to...
2. In Lovecraft stories, the aliens are not your friends. In the end of "Knowing," mysterious aliens take the surviving humans to an Eden-like planet where they can start anew. By contrast, the most sympathetic aliens in Lovecraft might be the "old ones" (he used that term a lot) from At the Mountains of Madness, who murder an entire camp full of humans not out of malice or indifference, but in the spirit of scientific investigation. Or perhaps one prefers the Yithians from The Shadow Out of Time, who will just trade bodies with you for a few years and probably ruin your life, before returning you to your own body and erasing your memory, leaving you with amnesia and a lifetime of nightmares. This, of course, just goes to show that...
3. There are no happy endings in Lovecraft stories. Don't get me wrong, the protagonists of his tales frequently triumph over the horrible alien forces they encounter; in The Dunwitch Horror Dr. Armitage and company manage to banish the titular monster from the earth, while Cthulhu is famously put back to sleep when he gets a boat rammed through him. The climax of these stories, however, doesn't mark their *end,* and in the denouement the "victorious" characters are left haunted with the knowledge that they have, at best, bought the human world a little more time, for they have seen the truth in the ravings of mad cultists and gained a glimpse of the fate of the world. Speaking of which...
4. Lovecraft never destroyed the world. Okay, that's not strictly true; in the prose-poem Nyarlathotep (one of my favorite works by Lovecraft, by the way) the titular character seems to bring about the apocalypse. Most Lovecraft stories, however, don't have such cosmic consequences. Indeed, for all their hideous revalations about the nature of man's relationship with the universe, protagonists in Lovecraft stories usually grapple with horrors of which the rest of the world remains blissfully unaware, their struggles going completely unnoticed and leaving them with no lasting injuries or other tangible evidence of what they've experienced.
And that is as it should be, because the horror in Lovecraft's best stories doesn't come from the threat of death; It comes from the threat of truth. It comes from the agony of having to live out the rest of your natural life knowing that there is no hope, that all the works of mankind are utterly insignificant and will some day pass away without the universe taking notice, and that the only real gods are uncaring cosmic forces who either don't notice us at all or view us the way a biologist might study a bacterium under a slide.
In the end, I think, that's what really makes Lovecraft's best stories resonate with us 80 years or more after they were written; what makes them "Lovecraftian". Even with all of their tentacled horrors and eldrich tomes and other trappings of the "weird," Lovecraft's stories force us to consider our world for what it is: a thin crust of living matter clinging to a tiny, fragile speck of rock whirling about one of billions of stars in a vast and largely unknowable universe. And even as jaded as we have become, that's still a pretty unsettling thought.
-Sigh-
Posted 12 years agoAlready seeing a lot of people I haven't seen in a while here at FC. Can't help but be reminded of the friends I've lost or lost touch with over the years. I'm doing better than I was at the end of 2010, but I've got a long way to go before I'm back to where I was when I lived in Berkeley. I'm so lonely sometimes, but I know I won't find someone to share my life with until I've got a life to share... for now I guess I've got to go it alone... nobody else can really help me.
I know I'm not happy with where I am right now, or even who I am right now. I just wish I knew who I wanted to be. Honestly, sometimes I wish I had somebody to tell me what to do... what to be... what to want. But that's not a reasonable thing to ask of someone else. Nobody's going to take care of me, as much as I might want that. I still need to figure out how to take care of myself.
I feel so small, and weak, and dumb. It's like I don't even remember the strength I used to have. I know everything changes... but can I ever change back into the loveable person I used to be?
I know I'm not happy with where I am right now, or even who I am right now. I just wish I knew who I wanted to be. Honestly, sometimes I wish I had somebody to tell me what to do... what to be... what to want. But that's not a reasonable thing to ask of someone else. Nobody's going to take care of me, as much as I might want that. I still need to figure out how to take care of myself.
I feel so small, and weak, and dumb. It's like I don't even remember the strength I used to have. I know everything changes... but can I ever change back into the loveable person I used to be?
Flight
Posted 13 years agoSpoilers Ahoy!
Just saw Flight, the new movie from Robert Zemeckis. I think Denzel did a great job, but did anybody else get a *serious* born-again Christian vibe off of this one? Pentacostals pull passengers from the wreckage of the plane, the characters seem to refer to God in every other scene, Denzel's dealer is constantly accompanied by the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil", and in the end Denzel says "God help me" when he finally admits to being an alcoholic, and thanks God when he gets sober. It's can't be just me, can it?
I'd like to note that I have nothing against Christians as a general rule, but I am somewhat offended that these film makers seem to want to imply that only the Christian God can save a person from drug addiction.
Just saw Flight, the new movie from Robert Zemeckis. I think Denzel did a great job, but did anybody else get a *serious* born-again Christian vibe off of this one? Pentacostals pull passengers from the wreckage of the plane, the characters seem to refer to God in every other scene, Denzel's dealer is constantly accompanied by the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil", and in the end Denzel says "God help me" when he finally admits to being an alcoholic, and thanks God when he gets sober. It's can't be just me, can it?
I'd like to note that I have nothing against Christians as a general rule, but I am somewhat offended that these film makers seem to want to imply that only the Christian God can save a person from drug addiction.
Curssse you, Ssspiderman! (Warning, ssspoilersss!)
Posted 13 years agoSo, I just got back from seeing a late showing of the recent Spiderman reboot, and I have to admit, I was really blown away. Now, that's not to say that I think the movie was genuinely great; honestly, it kind of fails to deliver anything particularly "Amazing" when judged alongside other recent Superhero films like "The Dark Knight" and "The Avengers". It's not that the movie is bad, it's just sort of... average; run-of-the-mill, even. The acting and directing are competent, the writing is ok, the effects are pretty good, and the plot, while fairly stock (science-gone-horribly-wrong creates a big scary monster that our hero, himself granted super powers by science-gone-horribly-right, has to stop), completely predictable, and a bit contrived at points, moves along at a good clip and serves admirably in setting up big flashy action movie set-pieces. It just lacks anything particularly impressive, unique, or memorable for your typical movie-goer to take home with them.
That being said, I must stress that I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, your typical movie-goer. For one thing, most of the people sharing the theatre with me probably knew at least a little something about the plot of the film going into it. I, on the other hand, hadn't really been paying any attention to the advertising surrounding this film, so literally all I knew about it going in was that it was a Spiderman reboot. I had no idea who was in it, what the central conflict was or, most significantly, who the villain was going to be this time. You can imagine my surprise and excitement, then, when the name "Curt Connors" popped up fairly shortly into the film's runtime.
Now, it's been a while since I last read a Spiderman comic or saw any of the Sam Raimi movies, so my initial reaction was "now why does that name sound so familiar?" After thinking about it for a minute or so, I suddenly had a flash of a gravelly, reptilian voice hissing "Connorsss," at which point my line of thinking changed to "no... it can't be..." After all, Raimi teased us for three f-ing movies with the good doctor, missing hand and all, and we never got to see so much as one talon of his scaly alter-ego.
It wasn't until Dr. Connors himself turned up (played by... um... some guy... I think he was Luna Lovegood's dad in that one Harry Potter movie) and we got to see the stump of his right arm, amputated at the elbow in this depiction, that I realized they were actually going to go for it. Let me tell you, I got really excited when I came to that realization; we're talking wide-eyes, rapid pulse, sweaty palms, the whole deal, just from the *foreshadowing*. And when, shortly thereafter, they introduced Oscorp's mothballed "douse the whole city in whatever chemical you want" machine, I felt like I must be dreaming.
For those of you who don't know me well, you might like a little explanation for why I got so worked up over these particular plot points. To put it simply, I love transformation, and I love scalies. Therefore, I love the Lizard, a classic Spiderman villain who is basically a well-meaning scientist who periodically transforms into a big muscly scaly monster because he injected himself with weird chemicals one time.
Furthermore, my weirdly specific, ultimate "furry" fantasy consists of large groups of people being transformed against their will into corrupted and/or mind-controlled monsters. Since the movie pretty blatantly telegraphs that the Lizard's master plan is to do exactly that (well before Connors even becomes the Lizard... I did mention the plot was predictable, right?), my biggest problem with the film quickly became my inability to do anything about the raging hardon it was giving me.
Er, sorry... that was kind of gross. Anyhow, I guess if I were a serious movie critic (which, and I can't stress this enough, I'm really really not) I would say that most folks can probably wait until this one is available to rent on DVD or Netflix or what have you, unless, of course, you happen to share my weird perversions. Er... actually, you might want to wait to rent it even if you do, since you might enjoy yourself more if you have the luxury of viewing it in private, and the option to pause or rewind it as desired. >_>
That being said, I must stress that I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, your typical movie-goer. For one thing, most of the people sharing the theatre with me probably knew at least a little something about the plot of the film going into it. I, on the other hand, hadn't really been paying any attention to the advertising surrounding this film, so literally all I knew about it going in was that it was a Spiderman reboot. I had no idea who was in it, what the central conflict was or, most significantly, who the villain was going to be this time. You can imagine my surprise and excitement, then, when the name "Curt Connors" popped up fairly shortly into the film's runtime.
Now, it's been a while since I last read a Spiderman comic or saw any of the Sam Raimi movies, so my initial reaction was "now why does that name sound so familiar?" After thinking about it for a minute or so, I suddenly had a flash of a gravelly, reptilian voice hissing "Connorsss," at which point my line of thinking changed to "no... it can't be..." After all, Raimi teased us for three f-ing movies with the good doctor, missing hand and all, and we never got to see so much as one talon of his scaly alter-ego.
It wasn't until Dr. Connors himself turned up (played by... um... some guy... I think he was Luna Lovegood's dad in that one Harry Potter movie) and we got to see the stump of his right arm, amputated at the elbow in this depiction, that I realized they were actually going to go for it. Let me tell you, I got really excited when I came to that realization; we're talking wide-eyes, rapid pulse, sweaty palms, the whole deal, just from the *foreshadowing*. And when, shortly thereafter, they introduced Oscorp's mothballed "douse the whole city in whatever chemical you want" machine, I felt like I must be dreaming.
For those of you who don't know me well, you might like a little explanation for why I got so worked up over these particular plot points. To put it simply, I love transformation, and I love scalies. Therefore, I love the Lizard, a classic Spiderman villain who is basically a well-meaning scientist who periodically transforms into a big muscly scaly monster because he injected himself with weird chemicals one time.
Furthermore, my weirdly specific, ultimate "furry" fantasy consists of large groups of people being transformed against their will into corrupted and/or mind-controlled monsters. Since the movie pretty blatantly telegraphs that the Lizard's master plan is to do exactly that (well before Connors even becomes the Lizard... I did mention the plot was predictable, right?), my biggest problem with the film quickly became my inability to do anything about the raging hardon it was giving me.
Er, sorry... that was kind of gross. Anyhow, I guess if I were a serious movie critic (which, and I can't stress this enough, I'm really really not) I would say that most folks can probably wait until this one is available to rent on DVD or Netflix or what have you, unless, of course, you happen to share my weird perversions. Er... actually, you might want to wait to rent it even if you do, since you might enjoy yourself more if you have the luxury of viewing it in private, and the option to pause or rewind it as desired. >_>
Did you know?
Posted 13 years agoAn idiolect is a variety of language unique to a single individual speaker. The term is a neologism coined in the late 1940's by combining the Greek word "idios" (meaning one's own, personal, private, or distinct) and the latter half of the more familiar term "dialect," itself derived from the Greek "légein" (to speak) and the preposition "diá" (through, between, across, by, of, or akin to). The idea that every individual human being posesses a somewhat unique manner of communicating emerged as linguists observed that people develop their language skills throughout their lives mostly by imitating those with whom they personally communicate in their day to day lives. Just as distinctive but mutually intelligible varieties of any given language (dialects) will tend to emerge when social or geographic boundaries isolate groups of speakers from one another, so too will the tendency of any given individual to associate with only certain members of a group shape their own unique understanding of the language.
Perhaps the most obvious example of an idiolectic trait is the catchphrase, a particular expression percieved as being especially distinctive of an individual person or fictional character, but idiolects have been observed to differ in terms of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and virtually any other aspect of spoken or written language. When elements of a person's idiolect stray too far from the local norm, however, they tend to be percieved as mistakes and may be corrected by members of that person's immediate social group. In this way, individual linguistic variations are generally prevented from developing to the point that they interfere with an individual's ability to communicate with his or her peers.
Perhaps the most obvious example of an idiolectic trait is the catchphrase, a particular expression percieved as being especially distinctive of an individual person or fictional character, but idiolects have been observed to differ in terms of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and virtually any other aspect of spoken or written language. When elements of a person's idiolect stray too far from the local norm, however, they tend to be percieved as mistakes and may be corrected by members of that person's immediate social group. In this way, individual linguistic variations are generally prevented from developing to the point that they interfere with an individual's ability to communicate with his or her peers.
Did you know?
Posted 13 years agoYopo, also known as Cohoba, Ebene, Jopo, Mopo, Nopo, Parica, or Calcium Tree, is a species of tree (Anadenanthera peregrina) native to the Caribbean and South America, whose seeds or "beans" are used as an entheogen by peoples indigenous to the region. Yopo beans contain a number of psychoactive compounds, the most important of which is Bufotenin, a psychedelic structurally similar to DMT. The beans are typically removed from their pods and toasted until they burst in a manner similar to popcorn, before being ground into a powder and mixed with lime. This mixture is then moistened to a doughy consistency and kneaded into a ball, before being allowed to dry. The finished product is administered by being blown through a bamboo tube directly into the nostrils of the user, and its effects typically last for between two and three hours.
Among those groups who regularly make use of Yopo in a medicinal or ritual context are the Yanamamo people of southern Venezuela and northwestern Brazil, who believe that it allows them to percieve and interact with animal spirits known as "xapiripë." During a Yopo ritual, participants seek to take these spirits into their bodies, thus granting themselves spiritual power, ridding themselves of disease, and perhaps even transforming themselves into fearsome and respected animals such as jaguars. Belief in the transformative power of Yopo is bolstered by the strange behavior of those under its influence, who are sometimes known to experience unusual fits and contortions.
Among those groups who regularly make use of Yopo in a medicinal or ritual context are the Yanamamo people of southern Venezuela and northwestern Brazil, who believe that it allows them to percieve and interact with animal spirits known as "xapiripë." During a Yopo ritual, participants seek to take these spirits into their bodies, thus granting themselves spiritual power, ridding themselves of disease, and perhaps even transforming themselves into fearsome and respected animals such as jaguars. Belief in the transformative power of Yopo is bolstered by the strange behavior of those under its influence, who are sometimes known to experience unusual fits and contortions.
Did you know?
Posted 13 years agoThe ancient Romans manufactured specialized terra cotta jars called "gliraria" for the express purpose of raising edible dormice (Glis glis), which were considered a delicacy and frequently eaten either as a snack or as part of a banquet. These unusual vessels were ribbed on the inside, providing the dormice with several "stories" of platforms to walk on, and would be stocked abundantly with food, usually including beechnuts, acorns, and/or chestnuts. A number of dormice would be shut up in a glirarium and allowed to fatten up until they were deemed suitable for eating. Of course, fatter dormice were considered more desireable, and could even be a source of prestige for a Roman host; primary source documents mention that scales would sometimes be brought to banquets, so that the diners could take note of the weight of a dormouse before it was eaten!
About that Writing Thing
Posted 14 years agoSo, someone (or possibly no one) has probably noticed by now that I gave up on that whole writing every day thing. I was going through a pretty rough time in my life until just recently, and it was hard for me to do much of anything at all. I'm doing much better now, and sometime soon I'm planning on starting a series of actual stories. They might not be to everyone's taste, but hopefully I'll be able to stick with em for a while.
Going Crazy (But in Kind of a Good Way)
Posted 14 years agoSo... I was, like, ridiculously horny all day today, which was awesome. Apparently it makes me do crazy things, though, like faving half of Immelmann's gallery (which is *exceptionally* awesome). For the record, and I can't stress this enough, there is, in fact, no method to my madness.
Awesome!
P.S. I also totally don't know how to make those little icon link thingies to other people's FA pages!
Awesome!
P.S. I also totally don't know how to make those little icon link thingies to other people's FA pages!
It's probably not a good sign...
Posted 14 years ago...that I've already missed my daily quota. Some stuff came up out of the blue yesterday, and I ended up being busy until about 1:00 this morning. I know nobody cares, but it kind of bugs me. Still, there's nothing to do about it now but to just pick up where I left off and keep going.
[Edit: I thought I dealt with the embarassing typo in the title shortly after submitting this journal entry, but apparently not]
[Edit: I thought I dealt with the embarassing typo in the title shortly after submitting this journal entry, but apparently not]
Also, More Stuff on my Page
Posted 16 years agoTo whom it may concern ~
Well, it's been something like six months since I actually put something on this page, and concurrently promised more things to come. Given that anyone reading this page knows that I don't... do... anything, you hopefully didn't expect anything too grand. Or at all.
But some time ago (a month maybe?) a friend told me to update my favorites so he could see the kind of stuff I've been looking at, and for whatever reason now seemed like a good time.
The faves weren't added in any particular order; some are things I've been fapping to recently, while others are older pics I have found particularly yiffy. How's that for too much information?
Well, it's been something like six months since I actually put something on this page, and concurrently promised more things to come. Given that anyone reading this page knows that I don't... do... anything, you hopefully didn't expect anything too grand. Or at all.
But some time ago (a month maybe?) a friend told me to update my favorites so he could see the kind of stuff I've been looking at, and for whatever reason now seemed like a good time.
The faves weren't added in any particular order; some are things I've been fapping to recently, while others are older pics I have found particularly yiffy. How's that for too much information?
More Stuff on my Page
Posted 16 years agoSo... I have an icon now, and I posed the image I cropped it from. I hope that's okay with 
Chaosmine ... I assume it is, but I'm sure 
Erfson will tell me if he wants me to take it down. I also have something in my favorites now... I grabbed it kind of randomly after I dug through 
Jace 's gallery to show it to a friend, but I guess now I'm obligated to put more stuff there now!
Chaosmine ... I assume it is, but I'm sure 
Erfson will tell me if he wants me to take it down. I also have something in my favorites now... I grabbed it kind of randomly after I dug through 
Jace 's gallery to show it to a friend, but I guess now I'm obligated to put more stuff there now! There are some things here now
Posted 16 years agoSo, I got bored this evening and decided to update some of my profile information and my watch list. So, hi... everybody I'm watching! I may do something more with this page at some point, but it's not like I have anything to post...
