Characters frequently appearing in this drama:

• I - your humble narrator, sometime writer and poet (preferred pronoun: he/him/his)


• Janni - spouse and writer (preferred pronoun: she/her/her)


• TBD - nom de internet of our child, not yet a writer (preferred pronoun: they/them/their)

Originally posted at https://larryhammer.dreamwidth.org/632515.html (where it has comments). You can comment here or there.

A history here, a history there -- pretty soon it adds up to real people:

Thanks to a dialogue for training cuneiform scribes c.1600 BCE, we know how to get your laundry done in ancient Mesopotamia. Also, pain-in-the-ass customers have been a Thing for a v-e-r-y long time. (via)

Wall chart of the evolution of the latin aphabet from Proto-sinaitic roots. (via)

Map of medieval afro-eurasian trade routes c. 11-12 centuries version 4. Zoomable version. (via)

---L.

Subject quote from Tony, Patty Griffin.

Originally posted at https://larryhammer.dreamwidth.org/714761.html (where it has comments). You can comment here or there.

Over the past year, I've seen or listened to episodes from 13* different Power Rangers series, in some cases most of the series. Some are better than others:

1. Mighty Morphin (starting 1995) -- Did enough right to become popular; wears its cheese on its sleeve.


2. Power Rangers in Space (1998) -- Weak shadow of the original … in SPACE!


3. Lightspeed Rescue (2000) -- Just plain bad.


4. Wild Force (2002) -- Puts several of the original's cheesier elements on crack. Flying island lol whut?


5. Ninja Storm (2003) -- Does have ninjas, but also a lot of badly applied camp. +1 for the beetle-themed costumes.


6. Dino Thunder (2004) -- I have no idea what the heck I was watching, the one episode TBD accidentally chose while looking for Dino Charge.


7. Mystic Force (2006) -- Interesting concept (Rangers x Harry Potter) marred by a low budget.


8. Jungle Fury (2008) -- Interesting concept (Rangers x Kung Fu) marred by inexpert camp.


9. RPM (2009) -- Takes its low-budget 80s-era-post-apocalyptic vibe and runs with it. Have to admire that.


10. Samurai (2010) -- Surprisingly good, with a surprisingly good production budget. Plays the premise straight, using as much heart as the actors can emote.


11. Megaforce (2013) -- Almost as good, with almost as much heart. The buccaneer-themed costumes are a hoot.


12. Dino Charge (2015) -- Throwback to the original's dinosaur themes, only with actual dinosaurs. Better than average.


13. Ninja Steel (2017) -- Despite the name, no ninjas, and therefore not quite as good. The villainous game-show of the first season works surprisingly well, though.

Octonauts is much better.

Any recs for shows available on Netflix/Prime/PBS Kids to steer a going-on-6-year-old towards?


*Depending on how you count -- I consider Power Rangers Super Samurai a second season of, rather than separate series from, Power Rangers Samurai. If you don't, my last four series are really eight.

---L.

Subject quote from Garden Song, Dave Mallett.

Originally posted at https://larryhammer.dreamwidth.org/714575.html (where it has comments). You can comment here or there.

For Poetry Monday, another modern sonnet:


“Sleeping sister of a farther sky,” Karen Volkman

Sleeping sister of a farther sky,
dropped from zenith like a tender tone,
the lucid apex of a scale unknown
whose whitest whisper is an opaque cry

of measureless frequency, the spectral sigh
you breath, bright hydrogen and brighter zone
of fissured carbon, consummated moan
and ceaseless rapture of a brilliant why.

Will nothing wake you from your livid rest?
Essence of ether and astral stone
the stunned polarities your substance weaves

in one bright making, like a dream of leaves
in the tree’s mind, summered. Or as a brooding bone
roots constellations in the body’s nest.


---L.

Subject quote from Ode to Psyche, John Keats.

Originally posted at https://larryhammer.dreamwidth.org/714275.html (where it has comments). You can comment here or there.

We're solidly into early spring flowers, with cassia and African daisies blooming all over, so here's three grim links:

An interactive map of the climates of US/Canada cities 60 years from now, by showing what current location has that climate now. (via)

How sex censorship has killed the internet. (via?)

How the discourse of “Baby It's Cold Outside” parallels that of Macbeth act I scene 7, with bonus pastiche. (via)

---L.

Subject quote from Job 37:16, JPS (1917) translation.

Originally posted at https://larryhammer.dreamwidth.org/714178.html (where it has comments). You can comment here or there.

The Europa flyover constructed from on Galileo imagery. (via)

Several ways to get the seeds out of a pomegranate.

Cookie Monster did an AMA. You get one guess what his favorite song is. (via)

---L.

Subject quote from @MarsRovers.

Originally posted at https://larryhammer.dreamwidth.org/713971.html (where it has comments). You can comment here or there.

Four podcasts I listen to:

1. YourClassical Daily Download -- My default music of choice is classical, but I haven't done much in the way of expanding my library for, um, several years. To avoid only listening to the same stuff all the time, there's the radio (my local station is pretty darn good, actually) and when reception or wifi is not an option, this: a random track a day, saving up ones I like.

2. Music for Programming -- While baroque works well for focus music, this is even better. (I can write casually to vocals, but not when I need deep focus.) Every few months, a new hour-plus of downtempo electronica ranging from space to ambient, constantly mixed up just enough to avoid boredom but not so much to jolt you out of your zone.

3. low light mixes -- When I want a little more variety. It's mostly thematic mixes of ambient, but it ranges about, with mostly weekly releases. I only occasionally save episodes, I find, but I generally listen to every episode.

4. Saga Thing -- Not for working to. Two professors of medieval literature are on a mission to discuss every Icelandic family saga, summarizing each one then bringing it to trial by rating its moment of best bloodshed, best stoic one-liner, who should be outlawed from the saga, and so on. (Thus calling it a "thing" in the sense of an Icelandic court.) Fair warning: They are scholars who love and teach this stuff and have been friends since grad school, so if you don't like their banter and byways you'll find it very long-winded -- it took them 12 going-on-two-hour episodes to get through Njal's Saga. (Content warning for those segments: hating on Hallgerd.) They're almost ¾ of the way through the project and just started Egil's Saga.

What podcasts can you rec?

---L.

Subject quote from On Seeing the Elgin Marbles, John Keats.

Originally posted at https://larryhammer.dreamwidth.org/713584.html (where it has comments). You can comment here or there.

For Poetry Monday, another modern sonnet:


A Prayer for Rain, Leisl Mueller

Let it come down: these thicknesses of air
have long enough walled love away from love;
stillness has hardened until words despair
of their high leaps and kisses shut themselves
back into wishing. Crippled lovers lie
against a weather which holds out on them,
waiting, awaiting some shrill sign, some cry,
some screaming cat that smells a sacrifice
and spells them thunder. Start the mumbling lips,
syllable by monotonous syllable,
that wash away the sullen griefs of love
and drown out knowledge of an ancient war—
o, ill-willed dark, give with the sound of rain,
let love be brought to ignorance again.


I should run more Mueller here. She was born in 1924 in Hamburg, and her family fled Nazi Germany for the States 15 years later, where she remains today. Her poetry in English has won several awards including the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize. This one's from 1964, FWIW.

---L.

Subject quote from The Earthly Paradise, "The Hill of Venus," William Morris.

Originally posted at https://larryhammer.dreamwidth.org/713286.html (where it has comments). You can comment here or there.

Reading Wednesday after a week+ of being sick:

Finished:

Marvel Rising, story by Ryan North & G. Willow Wilson, art by Helen Chen & Marco Failla -- Tie-in for the animated franchise, but telling an original story of how Doreen Green meets Kamala Khan (in a programming class the former is volunteer teaching) and Squirrel Girl meets Ms Marvel (fighting the video-game themed powers of another student in the class), and eventually working out their secret identities. America Chavez and Inferno join in. Cute, slightly off-character in the way of crossovers, and not essential for fans of either main franchises.

In progress:

Joy of Life (庆余年) (mirror), Mao Ni (猫腻) -- Excellent stuff. I had not realized till I poked at it that Mao Ni had written a reincarnation-from-our-world story, and while this is technically xuanhuan, the feel is very close to a historical romance (complete with court intrigues) and there's even a skiffy vibe at times (the protagonist spends a lot of time examining how his new world is different from ours, including the whole cultivation thing). I see a lot of complaints in comments about the slow early development, but I doubt anyone familiar with bildungsromans would be put off. I love the level of literary and cinematic references, including taking poetry as seriously as it historically was, and the ways Dream of the Red Chamber gets used are a hoot. I'm up to chapter 120 (of 570-odd translated, 825 total) but already I recommend this nearly as strongly as Way of Choices.

The King's Avatar, Butterfly Blue -- While fighting off (or rather, failing to) the Martian Death Cold that's going around, I needed something a) vastly amusing and b) requiring little brain. Returning to Yu Xiu's adventures as a pro video gamer with a profound control of aggro of both NPCs and other players fit the bill perfectly. Am up to chapter 1237, the translation having built up a nice backlog for me, and am still engaged despite shifting attention exclusively to his professional comeback, which to me is the less interesting thread.

Meanwhile, have also taken Miracle Doctor, Abandoned Daughter to chapter 331.

DNF:

Genius Doctor, North Night -- Between dislike of the growing grimdarkness and the story going premium, dropping this one -- there's enough other Good Stuff to read instead.

---L.

Subject quote from Homecoming (Walter's Song), Vienna Teng.

Originally posted at https://larryhammer.dreamwidth.org/713161.html (where it has comments). You can comment here or there.

Two vids and a pome:

Toccata and Fugue in d (BVW 565) performed on harp. (via)

Timelapse: Perijove 16. (via)

Business Writing’s Silent Killer: Passive Voice. (more sestinas from McSweeney’s)

---L.

Subject quote from Anemic Moon, Krista Detor.

Originally posted at https://larryhammer.dreamwidth.org/712928.html (where it has comments). You can comment here or there.

For Poetry Monday, another modern sonnet, this from 1928:


I Am In Need of Music, Elizabeth Bishop

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!

There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.


As you might expect given the subject, multiple composers have set this to music.

---L.

Subject quote from Lycidas, John Milton.

Originally posted at https://larryhammer.dreamwidth.org/712511.html (where it has comments). You can comment here or there.

For Reading Wednesday, because it's been only a week (I know, right?), only two new things to report, both Chinese fantasies in progress:

The Empress's Livestream (女帝直播攻略), Quick-Fried Mushroom* (油爆香菇) -- This is a hoot. Reincarnation xuanhaun with video-gaming elements: a female general from a futuristic era is reincarnated into a historical fantasy setting run by a multiverse-spanning livestream system, which gives rewards based on how popular her story line is with the viewing audience. She's given the goal "rule the palace by coming out on top of the harem intrigues" -- to which she says, fuck that shit, I'm gonna rule the palace by conquering the empire. Genre-busting set-scenes galore, with streaming commentary by her audience. Oh, and in her new life, she's been raised disguised as a boy because Reasons. Possibly the most fun part is that in her former life, she was a middle-aged woman who loved collecting the admiration of pretty girls, and she's not about to give up that hobby now that she's young again. It's not full-on LGBTQ acceptance, but it's by FAR the best** I've seen in Chinese webnovels (which are default heteronormative-with-erasure and all too often outright homophobic). Translation has only just started, but I'm keeping current at chapter 50 (out of 1840 total).

Miracle Doctor, Abandoned Daughter: Ghost Emperor's Wild Beast-Tamer Empress (神医弃女：鬼帝的驭兽狂妃), Ms. Lotus Bud*** (MS芙子) -- Female protagonist xuanhuan that starts, yet again, with MC having an abrupt change in personality and abilities, but for once this not the result of reincarnation but an indigenous lucky-stroke encounter. Also refreshing: a sweet, first-crush romance between teens (at least so far, though this looks to be changing soon). The adventure has been pretty standard and there are occasional narrative lapses, but I appreciate the attempts at mixing in family-and-court intrigue a la historical romances (even if they are simplistic for that genre). Can't say I actively recommend this -- for one thing, it's monster long, on-going with over 5000 chapters in Chinese -- but so far I don't regret my time spent. Am up to chapter 253 out of 494 translated.


* I love it when Chinese authors go all-in with their clearly pseudonymous handles.

** Same-sex marriage was legal in the protagonist's past life, and the narrator seems to not only approve of this but is tolerant of historical practices of gay male sex. The attitudes of other characters and livestream commenters are all over the place.

*** I'm guessing at how to read this: 芙 normally appears only in compounds that are alternate names for lotus flowers, while 子 is, among other things, a diminutive suffix -- and no, Latin letters in a name is NOT common.

---L.

Subject quote from Well—didn't you like the taste?, Sonya Taafe.

Originally posted at https://larryhammer.dreamwidth.org/712199.html (where it has comments). You can comment here or there.