A matter of faith

From The Princess Bride

Westley: Hear this now: I will always come for you.
Buttercup: But how can you be sure?
Westley: This is true love. You think this happens every day?

Is it still this week?

A song for the week that won't end...

"The Fly" - U2

It's no secret that a friend is someone who lets you help
It's no secret that a liar won't believe anyone else
They say a secret is something you tell one other person
So I'm telling you...

Overheard at a publishing conference

"Back-end fulfillment" : "Boundary-less delivery of product to buyers in any way they want it, now."

Apparently it's the new way to transact.

Hmmm.

The vault of lost lyrics, chapter 3

Because it's that time of year.

**

"Here's the World" (as recorded by The Payolas)

Here's the world
I can only help you go so far
Try to teach you wrong from right
How to take each day like a brand new day

Don't worry about me
Because who could ever ask for more?
Listen to these words that I write
There will be no tears in my eyes tonight

Don't let them fool you
Don't let them tell you that you'll never go far

Here's the world for you
Here's the world for you
Go tell them who you are
Here's the world for you
Here's the world for you
Go be a shining star

Take all my love
And carry it inside of you
Know that I will always be there
Know that I will always care

Don't let them fool you
Don't let them tell you that you'll never go far

(chorus)

And if I ever did wrong
Please forgive me now
Before I am gone
And if I ever did right
Tell me with a smile
That will light up this night, light up this night

(chorus)

Thought for Friday night

Sans zzz.

"Methought I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep!' the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."

$%@*#$!!!

Song for Tuesday

(I was out for dinner and visiting until far too late last night!)

"If I Am a Stranger" - Ryan Adams and the Cardinals

Today is yesterday when you don't know
How to rebuild the walls that someone has knocked down.

Song for Monday

"You'll Always Be" - Oh Susanna

Now I don’t need no tailor to sew this suit together;
your yarn is a worn-out old tether.

Song for today

"Diamonds and Rust" - Joan Baez

But if you're offering me diamonds and rust,
I've already paid.

Hard at work: meta markup

While correcting an exercise in proper mark a new phenom is unveiled. Meta markup. Or as we designers like to refer to it... a dog's breakfast.

It does beg the question of how much can one learn from that many "corrections"

-- Posted a la iPhone

Leslie's Coming Home

Today. Woot. And there's a Rip n Grip. Double woot!


-- Posted a la iPhone

A LibraryThing review

Many of you know that I'm crazy about LibraryThing , a book-cataloguing website that appeals to the book nerd in me.

One of the most fabulous parts of LibraryThing is the Early Reviewers group, which gives away copies of books at or prior to publication in exchange for reviews. There is no requirement that the reviews be laudatory or even positive, and the range of participating publishers is impressive.

Here is my latest review for LibraryThing (also posted in LibraryThing, of course). If you're interested in seeing my profile or my other reviews, you can go here.


According to Their Deeds
Paul Robertson
Bethany House, 2008


According to Their Deeds is a thoughtfully written mystery that draws together Enlightenment and Christian themes. When one of his long-time clients is murdered, gentleman scholar and rare books dealer Charles Beale is pulled into the investigation. Along the way he pauses to consider what mercy, justice, honesty, and integrity mean in a thoroughly modern, bitterly political world.

There are some weaknesses in this telling. The pacing is maddeningly slow; for a suspense novel, the action is far too strung out to create any real tension. And much of the dialogue is preposterous. Mr Beale speaks as though he dropped out of a Jane Austen novel. His attitudes, too, may prove a little too traditional for many readers.

That said, there is some wonderful word play in the writing, and readers will find few literary mysteries quite so literary in their conceits. Readers may feel clever recognizing the many in-jokes and allusions, and numerous puns will have readers either laughing or groaning — or both.

This novel is an interesting hybrid: an inspirational thriller. It should appeal to a range of reading interests.

3/5 stars

Here's a sentence to parse...

... and it provides some helpful career-planning advice, too!

"A career in popping cherries requires few resources beyond audacity, charisma, and a penis." — Hanne Blank, Virgin: The Untouched History

Dissertation work... Really!

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working-class hero is something to be...

— John Lennon

Bureaucracy

As in armies so in corporations: unhappiness with an institution can coexist with strong commitment to it; a person, even if generally unhappy, who is given room to make sense of things on his or her own patch becomes bonded to the organization.

— Richard Sennett, The Culture of the New Capitalism

Awesome Rave Playlist

Lovingly hand-crafted for Rave in the Cave, doncha know.

"Crazy" (single mix) - Brooklyn Bounce
"Gimme Freaks" - DJ Earworm (boot)
"She Wants Him" (vocal mix) - Moussa Clark & Terrafunka
"Hung Up" (radio edit) - Madonna
"Maniac" (remix) - Michael Sembello
"Flashdance" - Deep Dish
"Adagio for Strings" - DJ Tiësto
"Blue Monday" - New Order
"Call on Me" (radio edit) - Eric Prydz
"Dance Your Pain Away" - The Moon Whispers
"Boo in Love" - DJ Tripp (boot)
"Barbie Girl" - Rob Mayth (Candy Boyz vs Klubbstylerz Remix)
"Spin Me Harder" - DJ Tripp (boot)
"Brand New Lover" - Dead or Alive
"Zombie" - Andrew Spencer and the Vamprockerz (Ray Knox Hands Up Extended Club Remix)
"Blue (Da Ba Dee)" - Eiffel 65
"Caramelldansen" - Caramell
"God Is a DJ" - Dutch Trance Force (DJ Cobra Mix)
"Chase" - Giorgio Moroder
"Sweet Dreams" - Overdub featuring Sophia (Doug Laurent Bonzai Mix)
"I'm Too Sexy for Sex" - DJ Roy Batty (boot)
"What Is Love" - Haddaway
"You Keep Me Hangin' On" - Kim Wilde
"Flashdance ... What a Feeling" - Irene Cara (Adam Van House Mix)
"Enjoy What You Do" - Mac Murphy (Disco Filter House Radio Edit)
"Hyperactive!" (12-inch mix) - Thomas Dolby
"Dragostea Din Tei" - O-Zone (DJ Rosse Extended Remix)
"Precious" - Depeche Mode
"Born to be Alive" - DJ Team
"Situation" (US 12-inch mix) - Yaz
"I Kissed a Girl" - The Real Booty Babes (Club Radio Edit)
"Billie Jean Is a Spy" - DJ Tripp (boot)
"Don't Stop the Music" - Rihanna
"Sandstorm" - Tunnel Alliance

As mixed, this playlist runs to approximately 150 minutes of aural goodness.

My new year's tarot

Based on a modified Celtic cross spread

1. The significator: Queen of Swords
2. The problem, antagonist, or obstacles: The Empress
3. The foundation: King of Pentacles
4. The crown: 4 Pentacles
5. The near past: 6 Pentacles
6. The near future: Page of Wands
7. Attitude toward question: 3 Pentacles
8. Environment or influences: Page of Swords
9. Hopes and fears: 10 Swords
10. Outcome of the reading: Knight of Swords

I feel this spread represents triumph after considerable struggle (look at all those swords!). I have ample material resources for the task; my major struggle will be with the contradictory qualities of my own character. But note that the outcome card signals success: bravery, strength, a skillful and clever person, arrival. I'm reading this as an encouraging sign for the year ahead — if nothing else, it's much more positive than last year's spread!

Bad poems for sale

Because I could not stop the puck
It kindly stopped for me:
The crease held but just ourselves
And immortality.

Ha ha.

L

Stand by Me

Marcy sent this to me on Facebook. I love the concept and its a great rendition of this song...

Embedded Video

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Does Any One Know Any Thing?

Today's title is in honour of editors, one of whom would likely change my titling to "Does Anyone Know Anything?" — sadly, quite different in intent than my original.

Apparently today, on the eve of the solstice, we are enjoying the halcyon days. Michael Quinion provides an explanation:

The story goes back to a Greek legend that the kingfisher nested in
the sea at the time of the winter solstice and that its floating
nest brought calm to wind and water, what we now call the halcyon
days, "halcyon" being from the Greek name for the kingfisher,
alkuon. A romantic version of the legend was told by the Roman poet
Ovid about Ceyx and Alcyone. She was the daughter of Aeolus, the
god of the winds, and he was the son of the morning star. Ceyx was
lost at sea and Alcyone was inconsolable. The gods took pity on
them, turning them into kingfishers so that they might continue to
live together. When they mated each year at the winter solstice the
gods calmed the winds and seas so Alcyone might brood her eggs
safely. Alcyone's name became "halcyon" in Latin, because of a mistaken
belief that its real source was two Greek words meaning "conceiving
on the sea."

It's difficult to imagine a seascape populated with kingfishers this morning, with the air temperature at -29 and the wind chill equivalent to -33. Still halcyon, meaning peaceful, calm, carefree, is an emotional tone we should all strive for this weekend. The sun is about to begin its return journey: the light is coming back.

Too bad there are only five more shopping days until Christmas. Perhaps that's why truly halcyon days seem so remote and fantastic.

Soon to emerge from under a pile of marking...

L

Shakespeare was a Wild Thing

My online grammar students are required to do a style analysis exercise in which they must recast a piece of contemporary writing in an older idiom. Their choices are Middle English, Renaissance English, Enlightenment English, and Victorian English. The students protested that they had no idea what I was asking them to do — did I really expect them to learn Middle English in a week? — and could I please post a sample of the task.

Normally I am reluctant to provide well-developed models of assignments in class because students tend to do what I've shown them rather than developing their own, likely much more creative, solutions. However, I decided that because we are meeting in an online environment and they have much less contact with me than they would in a face-to-face setting, I would relent. Hence the following excerpt from Maurice Sendak's classic children's book Where the Wild Things Are, recast in Renaissance-style English. Enjoy! — L


***


The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind
and another
his mother called him "WILD THING!" and Max said "I'LL EAT YOU UP!" so he was sent to bed without eating anything.
That very night in Max's room a forest grew
and grew ——
and grew until his ceiling hung with vines and the walls became the world all around
and an ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max and he sailed off through night and day
and in and out of weeks and almost over a year to where the wild things are.
And when he came to the place where the wild things are they roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth
and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws
till Max said "BE STILL!" and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once and they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all
and made him king of all wild things.



Lo, upon that eve, when upon his person did Max array the suit in the likeness of the Wolf, and did make mischief of such a kind and of another such;
his Mother, the very Hera of his being, him appelled "WILD THING!"; the while sayeth Max, "I'LL EAT YOU UP!" and so, thus was he returned to his chamber lacking entirely in victual and sustenance.
Lo upon that same eve'n, in that fast foreboding chamber, did grow a wood and a wild, the which unfurled
and increased ——
and expanded vitally until the firmament was wreathed with tendrils and tenerumen, and the ramparts gave way to a Universe new-emerged;
and there upon the waves of fair Okeanos did tumble a sailing vessel bold, for the express conveyance of Max alone; and so he did voyage, tracing the pathways of fair Diana and bright Apollo both,
through the reckoning of a seven-day and beyond a fortnight, nigh upon one turning of the stars, to discover the place of the Wilde Things.
Whereupon encountering the horde of these Creatures Beastly, did they bellow, their shouts a clatter upon the Heavens; and did they grind their beastly dentures, a boisterous and disorderly shewing;
They did roll their eyen frightful upon themselves, and did brandish their talons and their pincers set to maul and mangle;
And then, of a sudden did Max proclaim "BE STILL!" and brought these beasts of wildest mantle under his own sway and suasion, using that charm magick, the enchantment of staring but fierce into their orbs aureal and not to break the thread he had made with those fearsome orisons; and they were afeared and did cower and quake, and unto him did apply the title of that one most wild of any,
And so did they make him Ruler and King of all their kind.