Joe Haldeman's latest novel, The Accidental Time Machine, is a book perfectly described by its title. Graduate student Matt Fuller accidentally builds a graviton meter that also functions as a time machine, with two major limitations:
1) It only goes forward, not backward;
2) Each jump through time is twelve times longer than the last.
The machine starts out jumping a few seconds into the future; by the time Fuller's ready to try a full-fledged experiment, with himself along for the ride, it takes him a month forward.
The machine isn't really controllable, or navigatable. The only thing it's indisputably good for is escaping your present time; which is good, because Fuller has a knack for getting into trouble.
This is my first Haldeman novel. It's readable (and it helps that I'm a total sucker for time-travel stories.) Some of the entries are weak: the future period ruled by a fundamentalist theocracy (complete with a holographic Jesus Christ) reminded me intensely of Heinlein's Revolt in 2100.
(Hey, I'm linking myself! That's a triumph of blog depth! Or self-indulgence. Don't answer that.)
The ending is disappointingly incoherent; I have no clear understanding of what happened, and I'm not sure that I'm meant to. It may just be a mystery of unthinkably-advanced science and time-travel weirdness. But I'd at least like to be clear on my unclarity, if that makes any sense.
Come to think of it, the entire plot- invent forward-going time machine, explore the future, get into trouble, keep moving farther ahead- was Poul Anderson's novella "Flight to Forever." Which was, frankly, done a lot better.
But this wasn't too bad. Like I said, I'm a sucker for time-travel.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Dogs and Robots and Mutants, Oh My!
My room was getting its semiannual cleaning this weekend (blech!) and I happened on a long-lost book that had been buried under my winter clothes: Clifford D. Simak's City.
It's a collection of short stories detailing Simak's future history of the decline of the human race. They're framed as myths that the intelligent dogs of the future tell each other about long-departed humanity- though educated dogs doubt that any such creature ever existed.
Humanity in Simak's future doesn't go out with a bang. It fails quietly, through social isolation and a lack of anything to strive for. It is replaced by dogs, who are made intelligent by means of surgery (today we'd say genetic engineering, but it amounts to the same thing) robots, and mutants- superintelligent, amoral beings whose purposes are never entirely clear.
Simak's writing is wistful: peaceful, sad, and ultimately resigned to the extinction of things. He seems to be an evolutionary writer, in the sense that H.G. Wells was; but where Wells triumphantly wrote of the dawn of new races, Simak writes eulogies for the fall of the old ones.
One surprise, in passing, is how much Isaac Asimov borrowed from Simak. His Solaria, with its agoraphobic isolationists, is directly taken from Simak; and Daneel Olivaw is clearly based on Jenkins, the immortal telepathic robot who discreetly guides humanity (and caninity) through history.
It's a collection of short stories detailing Simak's future history of the decline of the human race. They're framed as myths that the intelligent dogs of the future tell each other about long-departed humanity- though educated dogs doubt that any such creature ever existed.
Humanity in Simak's future doesn't go out with a bang. It fails quietly, through social isolation and a lack of anything to strive for. It is replaced by dogs, who are made intelligent by means of surgery (today we'd say genetic engineering, but it amounts to the same thing) robots, and mutants- superintelligent, amoral beings whose purposes are never entirely clear.
Simak's writing is wistful: peaceful, sad, and ultimately resigned to the extinction of things. He seems to be an evolutionary writer, in the sense that H.G. Wells was; but where Wells triumphantly wrote of the dawn of new races, Simak writes eulogies for the fall of the old ones.
One surprise, in passing, is how much Isaac Asimov borrowed from Simak. His Solaria, with its agoraphobic isolationists, is directly taken from Simak; and Daneel Olivaw is clearly based on Jenkins, the immortal telepathic robot who discreetly guides humanity (and caninity) through history.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Scharr on Patriotism
The first thing that comes to mind (and is easily accessible, since I have it bookmarked) is John Scharr's essay The Case for Patriotism, which says:
To be a patriot is to have a patrimony; or, perhaps more ac-
curately, the patriot is one who is grateful for a legacy and
recognizes that the legacy makes him a debtor. There is a whole
way of being in the world, captured best by the word reverence,
which defines life by its debts: one is what one owes, what one
acknowledges as a rightful debt: or obligation. The patriot moves
within that mentality. The gift of land, people, language, gods,
memories, and customs, which is the patrimony of the patriot,
defines what he or she is. Patrimony is mixed with person; the
two are barely separable. The very tone and rhythm of a life,
the shapes of perception, the texture of its homes and fears
come from membership in a territorially rooted group. The con-
scious patriot is one who feels deeply indebted for these gifts,
grateful to the people and places through which they come, and
determined to defend the legacy against enemies and pass it un-
spoiled to those who will come after.
Scharr goes on to say lots of other things- most importantly, how difficult it is for us to be patriots in this sense- but this struck me as being especially relevant. Patriotism is gratitude about one's country; how much happiness we will miss if we cannot feel it!
To be a patriot is to have a patrimony; or, perhaps more ac-
curately, the patriot is one who is grateful for a legacy and
recognizes that the legacy makes him a debtor. There is a whole
way of being in the world, captured best by the word reverence,
which defines life by its debts: one is what one owes, what one
acknowledges as a rightful debt: or obligation. The patriot moves
within that mentality. The gift of land, people, language, gods,
memories, and customs, which is the patrimony of the patriot,
defines what he or she is. Patrimony is mixed with person; the
two are barely separable. The very tone and rhythm of a life,
the shapes of perception, the texture of its homes and fears
come from membership in a territorially rooted group. The con-
scious patriot is one who feels deeply indebted for these gifts,
grateful to the people and places through which they come, and
determined to defend the legacy against enemies and pass it un-
spoiled to those who will come after.
Scharr goes on to say lots of other things- most importantly, how difficult it is for us to be patriots in this sense- but this struck me as being especially relevant. Patriotism is gratitude about one's country; how much happiness we will miss if we cannot feel it!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Today is a day of gratitude. A day to specifically think of all the things that are good in life. Which is a pretty long list.
I think that this is important because, for most of us, gratitude is not a natural emotion. It is far more natural for us to take things for granted, and just assume that "normal life" includes all the good stuff we've got.
So gratitude doesn't always come to us automatically. We have to work at it; we have to deliberately take a moment, or a day, and remember all the things we should be grateful for.
I'm going to try and think carefully on this subject today. Because I suspect that joy and gratitude are, if not identical twins, then very close brothers.
I think that this is important because, for most of us, gratitude is not a natural emotion. It is far more natural for us to take things for granted, and just assume that "normal life" includes all the good stuff we've got.
So gratitude doesn't always come to us automatically. We have to work at it; we have to deliberately take a moment, or a day, and remember all the things we should be grateful for.
I'm going to try and think carefully on this subject today. Because I suspect that joy and gratitude are, if not identical twins, then very close brothers.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Two Short Poems
Two short, dark poems about love by women.
Unfortunate Coincidence
By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying -
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
- Dorothy Parker
---------------------------
Humoresque
"Heaven bless the babe!" they said.
"What queer books she must have read!"
(Love, by whom I was beguiled,
Grant I may not bear a child.)
"Little does she guess to-day
What the world may be!" they say.
(Snow, drift deep and cover
Till the spring my murdered lover.)
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
Unfortunate Coincidence
By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying -
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
- Dorothy Parker
---------------------------
Humoresque
"Heaven bless the babe!" they said.
"What queer books she must have read!"
(Love, by whom I was beguiled,
Grant I may not bear a child.)
"Little does she guess to-day
What the world may be!" they say.
(Snow, drift deep and cover
Till the spring my murdered lover.)
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
The Deficit Made Me Do It!
I've been playing a game called Democracy. Its premise is that you've just been elected President; you can pass laws, revoke laws, adjust taxes, and so forth. (Yeah, I know, the President doesn't automatically have the power to do all that. But if you couldn't do these things, there wouldn't be much of a game.)
So you can basically reshape the country's laws into whatever you think would work best; and see then how that works out. It's like a political version of Sim City.
There are two conditions. First of all, obviously, voters may not approve of your changes; and if you're voted out of office, no matter how well things are going, you lose. Secondly, you have the national debt to worry about.
The national debt is by far the harder problem to cope with. You can win people's votes pretty easily, by setting up federal programs that are targeted to their interests; the game's structure is set up to make this pretty clear and easy.
But almost every good idea seems to be expensive! And raising taxes will kill you, politically. And there's already a mountain of national debt to work your way out of. Trying to reduce the national debt changes you from a confident social reformer to a hag-ridden penny-pincher who ends every policy discussion with "We can't afford that."
Into this desperate situation comes a thought: the Flag-Burning Amendment doesn't cost anything. It boosts my popularity with certain groups in a cheap and easy way, so that I can either cut these programs or raise those taxes, which normally would send them into a fury and guarantee my loss next election...
That's just an example. There are lots of free, horrible-idea programs whose only purpose is to please some interest group. And I would never have considered them under normal circumstances. But the fascination of the game is how its logic forces you to consider passing them; not because you like them, but just because it gets you some breathing space to get the real job done.
I don't know if that's even passingly comparable to real-life politics. But it wouldn't surprise me at all.
So you can basically reshape the country's laws into whatever you think would work best; and see then how that works out. It's like a political version of Sim City.
There are two conditions. First of all, obviously, voters may not approve of your changes; and if you're voted out of office, no matter how well things are going, you lose. Secondly, you have the national debt to worry about.
The national debt is by far the harder problem to cope with. You can win people's votes pretty easily, by setting up federal programs that are targeted to their interests; the game's structure is set up to make this pretty clear and easy.
But almost every good idea seems to be expensive! And raising taxes will kill you, politically. And there's already a mountain of national debt to work your way out of. Trying to reduce the national debt changes you from a confident social reformer to a hag-ridden penny-pincher who ends every policy discussion with "We can't afford that."
Into this desperate situation comes a thought: the Flag-Burning Amendment doesn't cost anything. It boosts my popularity with certain groups in a cheap and easy way, so that I can either cut these programs or raise those taxes, which normally would send them into a fury and guarantee my loss next election...
That's just an example. There are lots of free, horrible-idea programs whose only purpose is to please some interest group. And I would never have considered them under normal circumstances. But the fascination of the game is how its logic forces you to consider passing them; not because you like them, but just because it gets you some breathing space to get the real job done.
I don't know if that's even passingly comparable to real-life politics. But it wouldn't surprise me at all.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Reenlistment!
Yesterday was the day. My parents came up for the occaision, which was cool; they've never really had a chance to tour the ship.
The oath was administered by my division officer:
I, Fenris Wolf, do solemnly swear:
That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;
And that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
So help me God.
Four more years!
(It's like being President! Except that it pays less. And nobody votes for it. And it's probably more fun. Okay, it's probably nothing at all like being the President.)
The oath was administered by my division officer:
I, Fenris Wolf, do solemnly swear:
That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;
And that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
So help me God.
Four more years!
(It's like being President! Except that it pays less. And nobody votes for it. And it's probably more fun. Okay, it's probably nothing at all like being the President.)
Monday, November 12, 2007
Yeats on the Great War
At the end of World War I, November 11th was established as Armistice Day, in recognition of all that had gone before, and our relief that it was finally ended. So this is a day late, but hopefully not a dollar short:
Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen
I
Many ingenious lovely things are gone
That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude,
protected from the circle of the moon
That pitches common things about. There stood
Amid the ornamental bronze and stone
An ancient image made of olive wood -
And gone are phidias' famous ivories
And all the golden grasshoppers and bees.
We too had many pretty toys when young:
A law indifferent to blame or praise,
To bribe or threat; habits that made old wrong
Melt down, as it were wax in the sun's rays;
Public opinion ripening for so long
We thought it would outlive all future days.
O what fine thought we had because we thought
That the worst rogues and rascals had died out.
All teeth were drawn, all ancient tricks unlearned,
And a great army but a showy thing;
What matter that no cannon had been turned
Into a ploughshare? Parliament and king
Thought that unless a little powder burned
The trumpeters might burst with trumpeting
And yet it lack all glory; and perchance
The guardsmen's drowsy chargers would not prance.
Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare
Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery
Can leave the mother, murdered at her door,
To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free;
The night can sweat with terror as before
We pieced our thoughts into philosophy,
And planned to bring the world under a rule,
Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.
He who can read the signs nor sink unmanned
Into the half-deceit of some intoxicant
From shallow wits; who knows no work can stand,
Whether health, wealth or peace of mind were spent
On master-work of intellect or hand,
No honour leave its mighty monument,
Has but one comfort left: all triumph would
But break upon his ghostly solitude.
But is there any comfort to be found?
Man is in love and loves what vanishes,
What more is there to say? That country round
None dared admit, if Such a thought were his,
Incendiary or bigot could be found
To burn that stump on the Acropolis,
Or break in bits the famous ivories
Or traffic in the grasshoppers or bees.
II
When Loie Fuller's Chinese dancers enwound
A shining web, a floating ribbon of cloth,
It seemed that a dragon of air
Had fallen among dancers, had whirled them round
Or hurried them off on its own furious path;
So the platonic Year
Whirls out new right and wrong,
Whirls in the old instead;
All men are dancers and their tread
Goes to the barbarous clangour of a gong.
III
Some moralist or mythological poet
Compares the solitary soul to a swan;
I am satisfied with that,
Satisfied if a troubled mirror show it,
Before that brief gleam of its life be gone,
An image of its state;
The wings half spread for flight,
The breast thrust out in pride
Whether to play, or to ride
Those winds that clamour of approaching night.
A man in his own secret meditation
Is lost amid the labyrinth that he has made
In art or politics;
Some platonist affirms that in the station
Where we should cast off body and trade
The ancient habit sticks,
And that if our works could
But vanish with our breath
That were a lucky death,
For triumph can but mar our solitude.
The swan has leaped into the desolate heaven:
That image can bring wildness, bring a rage
To end all things, to end
What my laborious life imagined, even
The half-imagined, the half-written page;
O but we dreamed to mend
Whatever mischief seemed
To afflict mankind, but now
That winds of winter blow
Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.
IV
We, who seven years ago
Talked of honour and of truth,
Shriek with pleasure if we show
The weasel's twist, the weasel's tooth.
V
Come let us mock at the great
That had such burdens on the mind
And toiled so hard and late
To leave some monument behind,
Nor thought of the levelling wind.
Come let us mock at the wise;
With all those calendars whereon
They fixed old aching eyes,
They never saw how seasons run,
And now but gape at the sun.
Come let us mock at the good
That fancied goodness might be gay,
And sick of solitude
Might proclaim a holiday:
Wind shrieked - and where are they?
Mock mockers after that
That would not lift a hand maybe
To help good, wise or great
To bar that foul storm out, for we
Traffic in mockery.
VI
Violence upon the roads: violence of horses;
Some few have handsome riders, are garlanded
On delicate sensitive ear or tossing mane,
But wearied running round and round in their courses
All break and vanish, and evil gathers head:
Herodias' daughters have returned again,
A sudden blast of dusty wind and after
Thunder of feet, tumult of images,
Their purpose in the labyrinth of the wind;
And should some crazy hand dare touch a daughter
All turn with amorous cries, or angry cries,
According to the wind, for all are blind.
But now wind drops, dust settles; thereupon
There lurches past, his great eyes without thought
Under the shadow of stupid straw-pale locks,
That insolent fiend Robert Artisson
To whom the love-lorn Lady Kyteler brought
Bronzed peacock feathers, red combs of her cocks.
Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen
I
Many ingenious lovely things are gone
That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude,
protected from the circle of the moon
That pitches common things about. There stood
Amid the ornamental bronze and stone
An ancient image made of olive wood -
And gone are phidias' famous ivories
And all the golden grasshoppers and bees.
We too had many pretty toys when young:
A law indifferent to blame or praise,
To bribe or threat; habits that made old wrong
Melt down, as it were wax in the sun's rays;
Public opinion ripening for so long
We thought it would outlive all future days.
O what fine thought we had because we thought
That the worst rogues and rascals had died out.
All teeth were drawn, all ancient tricks unlearned,
And a great army but a showy thing;
What matter that no cannon had been turned
Into a ploughshare? Parliament and king
Thought that unless a little powder burned
The trumpeters might burst with trumpeting
And yet it lack all glory; and perchance
The guardsmen's drowsy chargers would not prance.
Now days are dragon-ridden, the nightmare
Rides upon sleep: a drunken soldiery
Can leave the mother, murdered at her door,
To crawl in her own blood, and go scot-free;
The night can sweat with terror as before
We pieced our thoughts into philosophy,
And planned to bring the world under a rule,
Who are but weasels fighting in a hole.
He who can read the signs nor sink unmanned
Into the half-deceit of some intoxicant
From shallow wits; who knows no work can stand,
Whether health, wealth or peace of mind were spent
On master-work of intellect or hand,
No honour leave its mighty monument,
Has but one comfort left: all triumph would
But break upon his ghostly solitude.
But is there any comfort to be found?
Man is in love and loves what vanishes,
What more is there to say? That country round
None dared admit, if Such a thought were his,
Incendiary or bigot could be found
To burn that stump on the Acropolis,
Or break in bits the famous ivories
Or traffic in the grasshoppers or bees.
II
When Loie Fuller's Chinese dancers enwound
A shining web, a floating ribbon of cloth,
It seemed that a dragon of air
Had fallen among dancers, had whirled them round
Or hurried them off on its own furious path;
So the platonic Year
Whirls out new right and wrong,
Whirls in the old instead;
All men are dancers and their tread
Goes to the barbarous clangour of a gong.
III
Some moralist or mythological poet
Compares the solitary soul to a swan;
I am satisfied with that,
Satisfied if a troubled mirror show it,
Before that brief gleam of its life be gone,
An image of its state;
The wings half spread for flight,
The breast thrust out in pride
Whether to play, or to ride
Those winds that clamour of approaching night.
A man in his own secret meditation
Is lost amid the labyrinth that he has made
In art or politics;
Some platonist affirms that in the station
Where we should cast off body and trade
The ancient habit sticks,
And that if our works could
But vanish with our breath
That were a lucky death,
For triumph can but mar our solitude.
The swan has leaped into the desolate heaven:
That image can bring wildness, bring a rage
To end all things, to end
What my laborious life imagined, even
The half-imagined, the half-written page;
O but we dreamed to mend
Whatever mischief seemed
To afflict mankind, but now
That winds of winter blow
Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.
IV
We, who seven years ago
Talked of honour and of truth,
Shriek with pleasure if we show
The weasel's twist, the weasel's tooth.
V
Come let us mock at the great
That had such burdens on the mind
And toiled so hard and late
To leave some monument behind,
Nor thought of the levelling wind.
Come let us mock at the wise;
With all those calendars whereon
They fixed old aching eyes,
They never saw how seasons run,
And now but gape at the sun.
Come let us mock at the good
That fancied goodness might be gay,
And sick of solitude
Might proclaim a holiday:
Wind shrieked - and where are they?
Mock mockers after that
That would not lift a hand maybe
To help good, wise or great
To bar that foul storm out, for we
Traffic in mockery.
VI
Violence upon the roads: violence of horses;
Some few have handsome riders, are garlanded
On delicate sensitive ear or tossing mane,
But wearied running round and round in their courses
All break and vanish, and evil gathers head:
Herodias' daughters have returned again,
A sudden blast of dusty wind and after
Thunder of feet, tumult of images,
Their purpose in the labyrinth of the wind;
And should some crazy hand dare touch a daughter
All turn with amorous cries, or angry cries,
According to the wind, for all are blind.
But now wind drops, dust settles; thereupon
There lurches past, his great eyes without thought
Under the shadow of stupid straw-pale locks,
That insolent fiend Robert Artisson
To whom the love-lorn Lady Kyteler brought
Bronzed peacock feathers, red combs of her cocks.
Friday, November 9, 2007
True North Strong and Free!
After a dramatic and treacherous voyage through the icy northern waters, we have at last made port in the hallowed land of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada!
I was too late getting off the ship to do more than a brief reconnaisance. However, I did successfully locate a mall, complete with food court!
(Canadian mall food, it turns out, is very much like US mall food. Who'd have thought it?)
More details tomorrow; I am taking a tour in the morning and shall have learned much of this strange land and its people.
I was too late getting off the ship to do more than a brief reconnaisance. However, I did successfully locate a mall, complete with food court!
(Canadian mall food, it turns out, is very much like US mall food. Who'd have thought it?)
More details tomorrow; I am taking a tour in the morning and shall have learned much of this strange land and its people.
Being Garrulous About "Garrulous"
This may not really make sense, but: garrulous sounds like it should mean something else.
dictionary.com defines it as "excessively talkative in a rambling, roundabout manner, esp. about trivial matters." All right. But it doesn't sound like that!
I have a sort of intuition (based on lots of reading, I guess) that I use to evaluate words. It normally works pretty well: I can guess what a word means even if I've never seen it before.
But "garrulous" trips me up. It sounds like it should mean "argumentative," or some such synonym of "hostile." Why? Probably I'm associating it with "garrison," a military outpost, and "queruluous", which means complaining.
But beyond that: the sound of the word itself suggests it. Gar-yuh-lus: the syllables lurch from one to the next ungracefully, and generally sound kind of miserable.
Compare "chatty" or "gabby": they're both short words that suggest idle, casual talk. "Longwinded," with its long "o," suggests a politician who goes on and on in a pompous way. "Babbling" sounds like a repetition of nonsense sounds, which is why it's commonly applied to babies and brooks.
But "garrulous"? Where did that come from?
dictionary.com defines it as "excessively talkative in a rambling, roundabout manner, esp. about trivial matters." All right. But it doesn't sound like that!
I have a sort of intuition (based on lots of reading, I guess) that I use to evaluate words. It normally works pretty well: I can guess what a word means even if I've never seen it before.
But "garrulous" trips me up. It sounds like it should mean "argumentative," or some such synonym of "hostile." Why? Probably I'm associating it with "garrison," a military outpost, and "queruluous", which means complaining.
But beyond that: the sound of the word itself suggests it. Gar-yuh-lus: the syllables lurch from one to the next ungracefully, and generally sound kind of miserable.
Compare "chatty" or "gabby": they're both short words that suggest idle, casual talk. "Longwinded," with its long "o," suggests a politician who goes on and on in a pompous way. "Babbling" sounds like a repetition of nonsense sounds, which is why it's commonly applied to babies and brooks.
But "garrulous"? Where did that come from?
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Salome's Dancing Lesson
I can't believe I haven't done any Dorothy Parker yet. Well, better late than never:
Salome's Dancing-Lesson
She that begs a little boon
(Heel and toe! Heel and toe!)
Little gets- and nothing, soon.
(No, no, no! No, no, no!)
She that calls for costly things
Priceless finds her offerings-
What's impossible to kings?
(Heel and toe! Heel and toe!)
Kings are shaped as other men.
(Step and turn! Step and turn!)
Ask what none may ask again.
(Will you learn? Will you learn?)
Lovers whine, and kisses pall,
Jewels tarnish, kingdoms fall-
Death's the rarest prize of all!
(Step and turn! Step and turn!)
Veils are woven to be dropped.
(One, two, three! One, two, three!)
Aging eyes are slowest stopped.
(Quietly! Quietly!)
She whose body's young and cool
Has no need of dancing-school-
Scratch a king and find a fool!
(One, two, three! One, two, three!)
... A Dorothy Parker Bible study would be either horrifying or brilliant. I can't quite decide which.
Salome's Dancing-Lesson
She that begs a little boon
(Heel and toe! Heel and toe!)
Little gets- and nothing, soon.
(No, no, no! No, no, no!)
She that calls for costly things
Priceless finds her offerings-
What's impossible to kings?
(Heel and toe! Heel and toe!)
Kings are shaped as other men.
(Step and turn! Step and turn!)
Ask what none may ask again.
(Will you learn? Will you learn?)
Lovers whine, and kisses pall,
Jewels tarnish, kingdoms fall-
Death's the rarest prize of all!
(Step and turn! Step and turn!)
Veils are woven to be dropped.
(One, two, three! One, two, three!)
Aging eyes are slowest stopped.
(Quietly! Quietly!)
She whose body's young and cool
Has no need of dancing-school-
Scratch a king and find a fool!
(One, two, three! One, two, three!)
... A Dorothy Parker Bible study would be either horrifying or brilliant. I can't quite decide which.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
The Garfield Sampler
This is probably a lot more fun than it should be. It takes panels from the comic strip "Garfield" and posts three of them at random, as if they were a regular strip.
Most of them almost make sense, and some of them are actually funny. (At least, funny in the Far Side sense of "What does that mean?") And this is perhaps what makes it semi-compulsive: they make sense just often enough to tempt you to try again.
Most of them almost make sense, and some of them are actually funny. (At least, funny in the Far Side sense of "What does that mean?") And this is perhaps what makes it semi-compulsive: they make sense just often enough to tempt you to try again.
The Misenchanted Sword
The Misenchanted Sword is Lawrence Watt-Evans' all-time bestseller. (As witness the name of his homepage.) And no wonder: it's a clever, well-told light fantasy novel.
Valder is a scout for the army of Ethshar, which is fighting an endless war with the Evil Empire of the north. He gets cut off behind enemy lines, hides in the shack of a hermit who turns out to be an eccentric wizard, and gets his sword enchanted by the grumpy old man so that he stands a chance of making it back home.
The fact that the hermit is grumpy, and arguable insane, and working with secondhand components, leads to the misenchantment of the title. Valder is left with a magic sword, "Wirikidor," that cannot lose a fight, which is obviously useful (indeed, he does make it home); but there are drawbacks.
Wirikidor is enchanted to protect his life, so he's basically unkillable by anything else. He's not immune to pain, disease, disfigurement, etc.: he just can't die until the spell is used up. And that will happen on the one hundredth killing- at that point, the sword will turn on Valder and kill him.
The first charm of the book is probably Valder- he's a likeable low fantasy hero, which is to say that he's not much of a hero at all. He just wants to survive the war, retire to find a civilian career and have a happy, uneventful life. When Wirikidor falls into his life, he doesn't want to become a war hero, he just wonders how he can be rid of it. (He can't.)
The second part of the book's appeal is its clear approach to magic. We're given pocket summaries that seem to make sense and delineate what's possible, which is essential since the whole plot is about Valder's dilemma with the sword. It approaches the status of a pure logic puzzle: if the unbreakable spell makes him unkillable, but still prone to the degenerations of extreme old age, then what can he do about it?
The ending, in terms of logic, is a copout; but by the time I got there I liked Valder enough that it didn't bother me.
Valder is a scout for the army of Ethshar, which is fighting an endless war with the Evil Empire of the north. He gets cut off behind enemy lines, hides in the shack of a hermit who turns out to be an eccentric wizard, and gets his sword enchanted by the grumpy old man so that he stands a chance of making it back home.
The fact that the hermit is grumpy, and arguable insane, and working with secondhand components, leads to the misenchantment of the title. Valder is left with a magic sword, "Wirikidor," that cannot lose a fight, which is obviously useful (indeed, he does make it home); but there are drawbacks.
Wirikidor is enchanted to protect his life, so he's basically unkillable by anything else. He's not immune to pain, disease, disfigurement, etc.: he just can't die until the spell is used up. And that will happen on the one hundredth killing- at that point, the sword will turn on Valder and kill him.
The first charm of the book is probably Valder- he's a likeable low fantasy hero, which is to say that he's not much of a hero at all. He just wants to survive the war, retire to find a civilian career and have a happy, uneventful life. When Wirikidor falls into his life, he doesn't want to become a war hero, he just wonders how he can be rid of it. (He can't.)
The second part of the book's appeal is its clear approach to magic. We're given pocket summaries that seem to make sense and delineate what's possible, which is essential since the whole plot is about Valder's dilemma with the sword. It approaches the status of a pure logic puzzle: if the unbreakable spell makes him unkillable, but still prone to the degenerations of extreme old age, then what can he do about it?
The ending, in terms of logic, is a copout; but by the time I got there I liked Valder enough that it didn't bother me.
Well, the Ship Didn't Sink
... Which is to say: as far as I know, the drills went pretty well. We won't officially know until Monday, but if we'd failed catastrophically I probably would have heard about it.
(Rumor has it that we did fail the swimmer-saboteur exercise; but like the entrenched-invader scenario, this scenario has a high expected failure rate. So hopefully that won't fail us for the whole thing.)
(Rumor has it that we did fail the swimmer-saboteur exercise; but like the entrenched-invader scenario, this scenario has a high expected failure rate. So hopefully that won't fail us for the whole thing.)
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Recessional
Something important for military people to bear in mind:
Recessional
by Rudyard Kipling
1897
God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies;
The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word—
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!
Recessional
by Rudyard Kipling
1897
God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies;
The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word—
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!
Yaah! Terrorists!
So it's another duty day. Today is special, though, because it's the start of our Force Protection Training Exercises, a 36-hour process where the ship faces one threat after another and we try not to get killed.
(I really wish I'd gotten more sleep last night. Grrrrr!)
We've had a bomb left by the pier gate, an intruder trying to gain access to the ship, and a team of intruders who successfully got on board and had to be rooted out of their entrenched position.
(That last drill is one of the worst, in that it's almost guaranteed to cause casualties. But we passed, which is to say that our casualties weren't horrendously high and our technique didn't have anything especially wrong with it; and so the drilling continues...)
My part varies from drill to drill; but it generally involves me and one other sailor running around with plastic guns, taking cover behind convenient large objects, and guarding whatever space we're assigned to.
It's going to be interesting to see how sleep-deprivation-incoherent I get by tomorrow afternoon.
(I really wish I'd gotten more sleep last night. Grrrrr!)
We've had a bomb left by the pier gate, an intruder trying to gain access to the ship, and a team of intruders who successfully got on board and had to be rooted out of their entrenched position.
(That last drill is one of the worst, in that it's almost guaranteed to cause casualties. But we passed, which is to say that our casualties weren't horrendously high and our technique didn't have anything especially wrong with it; and so the drilling continues...)
My part varies from drill to drill; but it generally involves me and one other sailor running around with plastic guns, taking cover behind convenient large objects, and guarding whatever space we're assigned to.
It's going to be interesting to see how sleep-deprivation-incoherent I get by tomorrow afternoon.
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