This space intentionally left blank
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
yaleartificer's LiveJournal:
[ << Previous 20 ]
| Sunday, April 8th, 2012 | | 10:55 pm |
A History of the World in 100 Objects
The title of this post is also the title of a fantastic book by the director of the British Museum, which tells a (partial) history of the world by examining a hundred objects in the Museum's collection. The book is particularly outstanding in two regards -- first, by filling in your knowledge of what was going on in all the other parts of the world your high school education didn't cover; and second, by telling the story in an exciting Sherlock Holmes sort of way, in which careful examination of the objects tells the story. I finally finished the book today, and thought I'd share some sketches of some of my favorites of the objects. ( Lewd stone carvings, two currencies, some stylish things to wear, and a Throne of Weapons ) | | Saturday, March 31st, 2012 | | 1:58 pm |
Princess Ida, or, Castle Awkward
I had never even heard of Gilbert and Sullivan until college, besides playing an underwhelming medley from H.M.S. Pinafore for a piano lesson once. Since I didn't encounter it until college, I assumed it was some kind of thing rich people liked to do, like yachting or investing in stocks. Well, I finally got around to seeing my first Gilbert and Sullivan last night -- Princess Ida, or, Castle Adamant is about the supposed absurdity of women's colleges. Says a friend who was in G&S as an undergrad, "We always avoided that one, because, you know, we would be putting it on in Radcliffe." It turns out, this is as bad an idea as it sounds! I know, you are shocked. ( Princess Ida, or Castle Adamant? I guess I'll try the Castle Adamant, thanks. ) | | Tuesday, March 20th, 2012 | | 9:58 pm |
On Writing Persona, Pt III
By the way, the best thing that happened at Vericon was not Persona -- rather, it was the charity auction that raised almost FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS for Doctors Without Borders. Holy crap, guys! You rock! But I had very little to do with that, besides helping to purchase a cardboard hammer at the auction which I am assured is Strong. And I had everything to do with ... writing Persona! ( Writing Persona, Part III ) | | Monday, March 19th, 2012 | | 11:56 pm |
On Writing Persona, Pt II
This is the second post on writing the LARP that I ran at Vericon this year. Occasionally people in the past have asked me for advice on how to write LARPs, and what I lack in overall LARPs under my belt, I make up for by sounding very convincing. This is more of that. ( On Writing Persona, Pt II ) | | 9:57 pm |
On Writing Persona, Pt I
Gene Wolfe has a book called "The Castle of the Otter" about the making of the book Shadow of the Torturer, in which he goes into all the little details that went into it despite the fact that nobody really asked for such a book. This is kind of like that -- the story of my thinking in how I wrote Persona, the LARP I ran at Vericon on Friday, despite the fact that nobody really asked me. "How was the LARP?" I ask people, second-hand or first-hand. "Good!" or "Really good!" To my relief, it sounds like it was good, and if you go on reading this post, I guess you'll at least be reading about a good LARP. But nobody ever really said, "Hey, was it intentional that you had designed the LARP so the GMs rarely have to leave one room?" or anything like that, so in a way, what you are about to read is LARP TMI. I won't reveal character secrets, and I think it would still be fun to play even if you've already read this post (or if someone else on the LARP has!) but if you feel yourself getting spoiled, by all means, bail out. ( On Writing Persona ) | | Tuesday, July 19th, 2011 | | 7:52 pm |
Memory Palace
On long car rides back and forth between Rochester and Boston, I've been listening to audiobooks. A particularly useful one is Moonwalking with Einstein, by Josh Foer. Josh was a journalist who, intrigued by the competitive sport of memory competitions, decided to train himself for them under the guidance of a European memory champ. He eventually won the U.S. Championships, in the process setting the U.S. record for fastest time to memorize a deck of playing cards (at a little over a minute and a half, if I remember right). His main trick for remembering the playing cards was to first memorize for each card a Person, Action, and Object -- so the Ace of Spades might be the Grim Reaper jamming on an electric guitar. (This is before the actual competition.) Then, to memorize three cards at a time, you take the person from one, the action from the second, and the object from the third -- so you might get the Grim Reaper playing basketball with a fish, or -- as happened during the championship -- the author himself moonwalking with Einstein. To remember a whole deck -- or some other sequence -- you can use the ancient technique of the memory palace, in which you imagine symbolic and weird things located around a place you know well, like the house you grew up in, to remember a particular list of items. After having the book in the car for several drives, I decided to memorize my own todo list with it ... and it works! On arriving in Rochester today, I successfully remembered to do laundry, take a visitor pass out of the car, return an article of clothing to the mall, and water a cactus, all by visualizing a giant cactus on my front steps with the relevant items poked to its spines. Inside the house itself are various other things on my todo list for the summer, like a baboon giving a talk in the foyer, and Kepler in the dining room. It's actually conveniently unforgettable; in fact, I can still remember the author's memory palace from the book, in which he had to remember his own todo list: some smoked salmon, six bottles of white wine, some cottage cheese ... Here's the New York Times article that originally alerted me to the book. Enjoy! | | Tuesday, June 21st, 2011 | | 4:52 pm |
| | Monday, March 28th, 2011 | | 8:35 pm |
THIS...IS...FAMILIAR!
The end of the world, I will show to you.  The dude-with-guitar abides. And is in the top 11% of the leaderboard. | | Monday, March 14th, 2011 | | 6:45 pm |
Rock Band 3
My neighbors must think I'm crazy, but I get ridiculous joy out of playing Rock Band 3 doing vocals and guitar simultaneously. I got a mike stand for the purpose, which seemed slightly absurd at the time, but now I am convinced this is the only way to play. For even more laughs, "It's the End of the World as We Know It" is a hoot played this way when, like me, you don't actually know the words. Also a sign of oncoming dementia: when you feel the need to announce your band when you're the only person in the room. But I just love the idea of some metal band looking for some kind of eldritch-sounding name, and kicking off their first real concert by shouting, "THIS ... IS ... FAMILIAR!" | | Thursday, February 17th, 2011 | | 8:24 pm |
Crazy duck in space
One of the greatest chiptunes from the NES era now has lyrics. Tor.com, I am waiting for your phone call to request to repost. *looks at phone* *crickets chirp* (actually swiped from Kotaku) | | 3:27 pm |
Watson posts at Tor.com
As luck would have it, a certain friend at Tor had read my earlier Watson LJ posts and asked whether I'd be willing to repost them over at Tor.com. Instead I rewrote the first two into a single post -- now that I'd have, y'know, a more official-like audience -- and then agreed to provide another post talking about the Day 3 competition. Both posts are now over there, and I might write more stuff for them in the future. Woo! This is the kind of writing I imagined I'd get to do as a professor, but actually have heretofore done very little of. It feels pretty good! | | Tuesday, February 15th, 2011 | | 10:05 pm |
| | Monday, February 14th, 2011 | | 8:52 pm |
Watson
In case you missed the first night of the first human-vs-machine episode of Jeopardy tonight, it's airing tomorrow and the next day, too. Watson, IBM's question answering system, is pitted against the two most successful Jeopardy players of all time -- one who has won over $3 million, and another who won 74 episodes in a row. My opinion after the first night, as an AI dude: Wow. Beautiful. I feel like I'm watching the moon landing. ( Spoilers ) | | Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011 | | 11:35 pm |
Billy Pilgrim's Song
I was inspired by yesterday's repost to write a new song. I started with chords and the line "I wanna be an ordinary guy," then decided that was not going to go anywhere. What science fiction trope hadn't I used yet? Vampires? Werewolves? Time travel! The next line was "But I'm unstuck in time," and then I had it: a song based on Slaughterhouse Five. (Loosely, since I haven't read it in a long time.) So here's Billy Pilgrim's Song. Edit: Changed the last line to "We'll throw time for a loop" -- for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that the old version sounded like "We'll get caught in the loo." Edit #2: Rerecorded with a better mic, a brighter singing style, and a few changed lyrics. Old version couldn't decide on tone; given that there's a line about an alien zoo, I'm not sure why this was hard. | | Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 | | 8:19 pm |
Songs repost
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) deaddmwalking requested that I repost my GarageBand songs, since my Wellesley account is now defunct. Yay, I'm flattered! Here's all the stuff that I still like after making it: Downpour. This is still my favorite. I find myself singing it sometimes, forgetting that I wrote it. Hey Caterpillar. This is the first song with lyrics I wrote, after my friend Yui wrote his own caterpillar song and he didn't want any of my suggestions for lyrics! The things eaten are from The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar. Take Ecstasy With Me. An instrumental version of the Magnetic Fields song, with an improvised solo in the middle. Perhaps someday I will tell you where the inspiration for this came from. But probably not. Einherjar. This is the only song here that got no love from anybody but me, but I still like it. Maybe because I've played too much Valkyrie Profile. Warrior on the verge of death opines that the gods did not choose him to fight in Ragnarok, finds out otherwise. (Einherjar is a word for the spirit of a soldier recruited to fight in aforementioned armageddon.) The plot twist in the bridge was not actually planned ... it happened on the spur of the moment, as I was trying to fit words to the chords. Mostly this was a song to experiment with Phrygian chords. Sounds kind of underworld, right? But maybe I laid on the grunge a little thick. | | Thursday, January 13th, 2011 | | 7:14 pm |
Anonymous was a woman
My username made a lot more sense when I was at Yale, but occasionally, it's relevant again. Specifically, the cover story for this month's alum magazine is about how many quotes that are commonly attributed to "anonymous" or other famous people were actually first said by women. Not famous women, either, in an example of the Matthew Effect of not-famous people getting their stuff attributed to more famous people. "He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much...." Bessie Stanley, a winner of a 1905 contest in Modern Woman magazine. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Not actually Voltaire, but Evelyn Beatrice Hall (1868-1919) characterizing Voltaire's philosophy. "Now I know why nobody ever comes here; it's too crowded." Not Yogi Berra, but attributed to one Suzanne Ridgeway when Yogi Berra was just 16. "No time like the present." Mary de la Riviere Manley, 1663-1724. "Twinkle, twinkle, little star..." Jane Taylor, 1783-1824. "Mary had a little lamb..." Sarah Josepha Hale, 1788-1879. "Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Weep, and you weep alone." Ella Wilcox, 1850-1919. I'd say these are the most famous ones in the article, but there are more. Oddly enough, even Bartlett's Familiar Quotations originally had mostly the same quotations as an earlier English work, Handbook of Familiar Quotations from English Authors (1853), by one Isabella Preston. "I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman." --Virginia Woolf. Source: "Anonymous was a Woman," by Fred Shapiro. Jan/Feb 2011 issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine. | | Tuesday, December 14th, 2010 | | 7:19 pm |
Before the Law
This is the prologue to the Orson Welles version of Kafka's The Trial: I'm thinking of implementing this as a text adventure. What if the man just tries to walk right past the guard? What if he tries to attack the guard? Is it true that the door was just for him? Or does the guard lie, to place the guilt on the man instead of himself? ( Okay, you can clean your brain out now with this ) | | Sunday, October 17th, 2010 | | 11:56 am |
The Magicians
Every once in a while, you come across a book that speaks directly to you. And sometimes that book says, "Why are you such a jerk?" The Magicians has been marketed as Harry Potter for Adults, like a lot of fantasy books released in the past decade. It's actually a closer metaphor than usual, insofar as the book is literally about a magic school, complete with houses with different personalities and a Quidditch substitute. What's different about it is that it takes very seriously the psychological impact of selecting a bunch of very talented kids, saying "You are better than the outside world," but then proceeding to give zero guidance about how to live their lives once they have left their magical academy, leaving them to forever wonder where they missed the boat for the life of heroism that was supposed to await post-graduation. In this way, talented young people given every advantage and comfort still find ways to make themselves miserable, because whatever they've got, they're pretty sure it's not what they might have had. That's right -- it's about the Ivy league experience! ( More on The Magicians ) | | Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 | | 9:36 pm |
| | Friday, August 20th, 2010 | | 12:05 pm |
Ghosts of the War: Sergey Larenkov and Four Freedoms
At a friend's recommendation, I subscribe to an e-mail list called The Very Short List, which posts a recommendation for a website, movie, or DVD once a day. Today, they've posted a link to a collection of haunting photographs in which World War II photos of Berlin and Moscow are superimposed on shots of the same areas today. Black-and-white soldiers barricade shops that gleam with full-color capitalism. A ghost trolley rides along the same wire as its modern counterpart. Have a look! As fortune would have it, I just finished a fantastic book about a different variety of World War II ghosts, Four Freedoms, by John Crowley. Crowley is maybe best known for Little, Big, a World Fantasy Award-winning book that I've recommended on this journal before. In Four Freedoms, he tackles the lives of the factory workers back in the States during the war. It's a great book, and it's actually great for the same reasons that Little, Big was great -- it sinks deep into the skins of its characters, who are rich and identifiable at the same time, so that by the time you're done, you've absorbed not just a story, but their lives. Though the story centers around Prosper Olander, a young man permanently on crutches who nevertheless manages to be optimistic and even womanizing most of the time, we also get intimate portraits of: the Van Damme brothers, a hot-and-cold duo of inventor-entrepreneurs who create their ideal city around their wartime factory; Pancho Notzing, who lectures about his ideal "Bestopia" without realizing that this wartime factory is about as close as he's likely to get; Connie Wrobleski, a young woman in love with a man who doesn't deserve it, far more intelligent than the period (and she herself) expects her to be, but unlucky enough to have named her son Adolph; and more. There's a quote from Tom Brokaw on the front, suggesting that Crowley has finally broken out of the science fiction ghetto, but he somehow manages to evoke the sense of wonder that we love most about science fiction -- the playing with possibility, the sense of otherworldliness and the fantastic -- without ever quite saying anything that is explicitly fantastic. The book's opening: "In the fields that lie to the west of the Ponca City municipal airport, there once could be seen a derelict Van Damme B-30 Pax bomber, one of the only five hundred turned out at the plant that Van Damme Aero built beyond the screen of oaks along Bois d'Arc Creek (Bodark the locals call it). The Pax was only a carcass -- just the fuselage, wingless and tail-less, like a great insect returning to its chrysalis stage from adulthood. I mean to say it was a carcass then, in the time when (though signs warned us away) we used to play on it and in it: examining the mysteries of its lockboxes and fixtures, taking the pilot's seat and tapping the fogged dials, looking up to see sky through the Plexiglas windows. Now all of it's gone -- plane, plant, fields, trees, and children. There is a philosophical, or metaphysical, position that can be taken -- maybe it's a scientific hypothesis -- that the past cannot in fact exist. Everything that can possibly exist exists only now...." I hope you see what I mean. Crowley is fantastic at taking the wonder and speculation of science fiction and fantasy, and showing just how unnecessary the totems of our tribe are; showing that ghosts and wonder and the past and the future are everywhere, if you know where to peer. Highly recommended. |
[ << Previous 20 ]
|
