As today is my birthday...
Gin and Tonic
4ish Ice Cubes (made with tonic water if you like to think ahead)
1 mini can Tonic Water
2 jiggers Gin (Bombay Sapphire, ooh la la)
1 Lime
In a highball glass, combine gin and tonic water over ice. Garnish with slice of lime. Add lime juice if you are feeling especially limey.
Really, this is not precisely rocket science.
Bonus: malaria prevention!
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Ready Set Go
I've been reading Darwin (for Darwin class) and learning about African colonization (in Africa class), and for some reason thought of an image I'd seen once a long time ago. I don't think it was this one exactly, but it's close enough:
It's from a book (Maury's New Complete Geography, to be precise) from the turn of the previous century. For whatever reason, it made the people on the blog where it was first posted rather indignant. Does it make these readers uncomfortable? Why - or why not?
On a lighter note, while I was searching for the image, I stumbled into the land of Hetalia fanart. Sampling from one of many deviantART galleries...
Which brings me back: have we changed? I think so...but how?
And "Greece got hotter" may or may not be an acceptable answer.
On a lighter note, while I was searching for the image, I stumbled into the land of Hetalia fanart. Sampling from one of many deviantART galleries...
And "Greece got hotter" may or may not be an acceptable answer.
Monday, March 29, 2010
A Billion
I knew that a billion isn't always a billion, depending on where one is...but I had no idea how pervasive this problem was.
1 000 000: Everyone agrees it's a cool million. So that's good.
1 000 000 000: Well I think it's a billion...so that must mean I follow the short scale. Apparently though, if you're from somewhere like Italy, Croatia, Ecuador, or Belgium, this is either a thousand-million or a milliard. Umm.
1 000 000 000 000: The short scale goes with trillion, but the long scale says that this is a billion, and that all of us in the USA, the UK, Iran, and the Ukraine were premature.
1 000 000 000 000 000: Either a quadrillion...or a billiard. Yes, like the ball. I know. Rather understated, I think...
And so we continue merrily along with my quintillion being someone else's trillion, my sextillion being their trilliard, and hopefully I figure it out before I meet my foreign, mysteriously wealthy CEO, because we are literally talking about millions - I think we can all agree on that figure - of pairs of shoes.
1 000 000: Everyone agrees it's a cool million. So that's good.
1 000 000 000: Well I think it's a billion...so that must mean I follow the short scale. Apparently though, if you're from somewhere like Italy, Croatia, Ecuador, or Belgium, this is either a thousand-million or a milliard. Umm.
1 000 000 000 000: The short scale goes with trillion, but the long scale says that this is a billion, and that all of us in the USA, the UK, Iran, and the Ukraine were premature.
1 000 000 000 000 000: Either a quadrillion...or a billiard. Yes, like the ball. I know. Rather understated, I think...
And so we continue merrily along with my quintillion being someone else's trillion, my sextillion being their trilliard, and hopefully I figure it out before I meet my foreign, mysteriously wealthy CEO, because we are literally talking about millions - I think we can all agree on that figure - of pairs of shoes.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Porcelain and Glass
I read somewhere - and of course I forget where - that, possibly due to the tea craze in ancient China, the Chinese only used porcelain vessels for drinking, eating, etc., and never got around to inventing glass (as all red-blooded alcohol-drinking civilizations have done...perhaps to show off the deep, rich tones of their Merlots). Anyway. Without glass, this society - normally so trend-setting when it came to printing presses, compasses, gunpowder, and all other things technological - was stuck using waxed paper in place of windowpanes, lamps, and other things that are better off (a) transparent and (b) non-flammable.
Very interesting.
I'm not sure if it's strictly true or just one of those good historical stories, but I think the lesson to be learned is that we shouldn't be so attached to one way of doing things that we close ourselves off from other ideas.
Very interesting.
I'm not sure if it's strictly true or just one of those good historical stories, but I think the lesson to be learned is that we shouldn't be so attached to one way of doing things that we close ourselves off from other ideas.
Friday, March 26, 2010
A truth universally acknowledged...
...and I should probably cite where I got that from. But I forget where that was. So...yeah.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
The Formation of Words
What are the ways a word can be formed? Not too surprisingly, the linguists have got this one covered. Let's see if I can't sum it up (with help from my old friend, Wikipedia):
Conversion, a sort of semantic extension where old words take on new meaning, is possibly the method by which the bulk of English words come into existence (take mistress). Another obvious origin is the borrowing of loan words from other languages (naive).
There's also compounding, where several words are strung together (like mailbox); blending, where parts of words are joined (such as smog or sonar) agglutination, where prefixes, infixes, or suffixes are added (fearlessness); and back-formation (as in edit, from editor).
When onomatopoeic words are separated out, neologisms in modern-day English are relatively rare; that is, we very rarely speak in language that has not got some subtext, some history. Interesting? If we aren't using novel words, if everything we say is referring to something else, how much of what we think is unique? And if our thoughts aren't original, what about our actions?
Or, then again, perhaps the productivity of language saves us from staleness after all.
Conversion, a sort of semantic extension where old words take on new meaning, is possibly the method by which the bulk of English words come into existence (take mistress). Another obvious origin is the borrowing of loan words from other languages (naive).
There's also compounding, where several words are strung together (like mailbox); blending, where parts of words are joined (such as smog or sonar) agglutination, where prefixes, infixes, or suffixes are added (fearlessness); and back-formation (as in edit, from editor).
When onomatopoeic words are separated out, neologisms in modern-day English are relatively rare; that is, we very rarely speak in language that has not got some subtext, some history. Interesting? If we aren't using novel words, if everything we say is referring to something else, how much of what we think is unique? And if our thoughts aren't original, what about our actions?
Or, then again, perhaps the productivity of language saves us from staleness after all.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Now If Only They Would Unlock The Kitchen...
Chilled Cucumber Soup
3 Cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and grated
3 Cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and chopped
3 cloves Garlic
½ cup packed Parsley Leaves
½ cup Lemon Juice
½ cup Sour Cream
1½ quarts Buttermilk
1 tbsp Sea Salt
1 tsp grated Lemon Peel
1 tsp Pepper
2 cups Water
In a food processor, puree the chopped cucumbers with garlic, parsley, lemon juice, and sour cream. Combine the grated cucumbers with the rest of the ingredients and adjust seasonings as needed. Serve with more cucumbers, scallions, and mint. From Louisa's in Cape May, with some slight revisions...like more garlic and lemon, of course.
Hm. This would be excellent for my scratchy hayfever throat...
3 Cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and grated
3 Cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and chopped
3 cloves Garlic
½ cup packed Parsley Leaves
½ cup Lemon Juice
½ cup Sour Cream
1½ quarts Buttermilk
1 tbsp Sea Salt
1 tsp grated Lemon Peel
1 tsp Pepper
2 cups Water
In a food processor, puree the chopped cucumbers with garlic, parsley, lemon juice, and sour cream. Combine the grated cucumbers with the rest of the ingredients and adjust seasonings as needed. Serve with more cucumbers, scallions, and mint. From Louisa's in Cape May, with some slight revisions...like more garlic and lemon, of course.
Hm. This would be excellent for my scratchy hayfever throat...
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
A Simple (Albeit Comical) Argument for Christian Theology
I read this the other evening and thought it thought-provoking. It's originally from CS Lewis' Miracles. I added some paragraph breaks to make it less scary.
Almost the whole of Christian theology could perhaps be deduced from the two facts (a) That men make coarse jokes, and (b) That they feel the dead to be uncanny.
The coarse joke proclaims that we have here an animal which finds its own animality either objectionable or funny. Unless there had been a quarrel between the spirit and the organism I do not see how this could be: it is the very mark of the two not being ‘at home’ together. But it is very difficult to imagine such a state of affairs as original - to suppose a creature which from the very first was half shocked and half tickled to death at the mere fact of being the creature it is. I do not perceive that dogs see anything funny about being dogs: I suspect that angels see nothing funny about being angels.
Our feeling about the dead is equally odd. It is idle to say that we dislike corpses because we are afraid of ghosts. You might say with equal truth that we fear ghosts because we dislike corpses - for the ghost owes much of its horror to the associated ideas of pallor, decay, coffins, shrouds, and worms. In reality we hate the division which makes possible the conception of either corpse or ghost. Because the thing ought not to be divided, each of the halves into which it falls by division is detestable.
The explanations which Naturalism gives both of bodily shame and of our feeling about the dead are not satisfactory. It refers us to primitive taboos and superstitions - as if these themselves were not obviously results of the thing to be explained. But once accept the Christian doctrine that man was originally a unity and that the present division is unnatural, and all the phenomena fall into place.
Anyway. Discuss.
Almost the whole of Christian theology could perhaps be deduced from the two facts (a) That men make coarse jokes, and (b) That they feel the dead to be uncanny.
The coarse joke proclaims that we have here an animal which finds its own animality either objectionable or funny. Unless there had been a quarrel between the spirit and the organism I do not see how this could be: it is the very mark of the two not being ‘at home’ together. But it is very difficult to imagine such a state of affairs as original - to suppose a creature which from the very first was half shocked and half tickled to death at the mere fact of being the creature it is. I do not perceive that dogs see anything funny about being dogs: I suspect that angels see nothing funny about being angels.
Our feeling about the dead is equally odd. It is idle to say that we dislike corpses because we are afraid of ghosts. You might say with equal truth that we fear ghosts because we dislike corpses - for the ghost owes much of its horror to the associated ideas of pallor, decay, coffins, shrouds, and worms. In reality we hate the division which makes possible the conception of either corpse or ghost. Because the thing ought not to be divided, each of the halves into which it falls by division is detestable.
The explanations which Naturalism gives both of bodily shame and of our feeling about the dead are not satisfactory. It refers us to primitive taboos and superstitions - as if these themselves were not obviously results of the thing to be explained. But once accept the Christian doctrine that man was originally a unity and that the present division is unnatural, and all the phenomena fall into place.
Anyway. Discuss.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Two Ladies
Item 1: Portrait of Madame X (Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau), 1884 by John Singer Sargent, American born in Florence in 1856, died in London 1925.
Item 2: The Black Sash (Ava Lister, Baroness Ribblesdale), 1905 by Giovanni Boldini, an Italian born in Ferrara in 1842, died in Paris in 1931.
Could it be the name "Ribblesdale"?
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Rivers Part 2: Confluence!
What with my hometown being in Pittsburgh, I actually can say that I live near one of Wikipedia's 'Notable confluences" - hooray! - the merging of the Allegheny and the Monongahela. However, this meeting point, as much as I am fond of it, is not the most visually stunning, and so let me show you the confluence at Manaus in Brazil, where the 'wedding of the waters' is truly stunning.
So this satellite image shows the city of Manaus as the white blob to the north of the Rio Negro (black because of the tannins dissolved in the water) and the confluence where the Negro merges with the brown, silty Solimoes to form the Amazonas.
A closer photo shows the stark contrast between the two rivers.
What I find particularly interesting is that the sharp boundary between the two rivers' waters is maintained for nearly four miles. This is due to a difference in temperature and speed - the warmer Negro flows at around 1mph, while the Solimoes, ten degrees cooler, flows 2-3 times faster.
Anyway, the scientist in me is drawn to the dichotomy (noted, again, by Wikipedia) between a confluence and its opposite, a watershed. But I've probably bored you enough with numbers and definitions, and the tourist in me wants to point out some other interesting confluences for you to google, if you are so inclined.
I've been to the confluence of the Rhone and Saone in Lyon, France, where the rivers weren't so much the focus but the boundaries of an urban development project...still, historical and lovely. Some other aquatic meeting points that seem to me worth visiting for their historic worth and natural beauty include: the confluence of the Tigris and the Euphrates (the cradle of civilization...in modern-day Iraq. Perhaps I might wait a bit for that one), the confluence of the Drava and the Danube, near the city Osijek in Croatia (represent!), and the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna, and Saraswati at the Triveni Sangam in India (very sacred, very historical - this is where Gandhi's ashes were immersed). There are many others out there, though - I'll have to rent a little houseboat at some point to check them all out.
A closer photo shows the stark contrast between the two rivers.
Anyway, the scientist in me is drawn to the dichotomy (noted, again, by Wikipedia) between a confluence and its opposite, a watershed. But I've probably bored you enough with numbers and definitions, and the tourist in me wants to point out some other interesting confluences for you to google, if you are so inclined.
I've been to the confluence of the Rhone and Saone in Lyon, France, where the rivers weren't so much the focus but the boundaries of an urban development project...still, historical and lovely. Some other aquatic meeting points that seem to me worth visiting for their historic worth and natural beauty include: the confluence of the Tigris and the Euphrates (the cradle of civilization...in modern-day Iraq. Perhaps I might wait a bit for that one), the confluence of the Drava and the Danube, near the city Osijek in Croatia (represent!), and the confluence of the Ganga, Yamuna, and Saraswati at the Triveni Sangam in India (very sacred, very historical - this is where Gandhi's ashes were immersed). There are many others out there, though - I'll have to rent a little houseboat at some point to check them all out.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Technical Difficulties/Rivers Part 1
The internet cut out last night, preventing me from posting anything of significance (or anything at all).
Okay, also it was a lovely day outside and I decided to go down to the river for the afternoon...and then to watch a film in the evening, so that didn't help either.
And I was going to write a nice long post about confluences. Instead, I'll save that for tomorrow (today), and backpost this (again) and give you a little tidbit about rivers and lakes and other bodies of water, to whet your appetite (as it were).
So. Over the course of time, various places around the globe have been redundantly named due to their obvious local geography and a shift in the current dialect. These, incidentally, are known as tautological names. Such as:
Okay, also it was a lovely day outside and I decided to go down to the river for the afternoon...and then to watch a film in the evening, so that didn't help either.
And I was going to write a nice long post about confluences. Instead, I'll save that for tomorrow (today), and backpost this (again) and give you a little tidbit about rivers and lakes and other bodies of water, to whet your appetite (as it were).
So. Over the course of time, various places around the globe have been redundantly named due to their obvious local geography and a shift in the current dialect. These, incidentally, are known as tautological names. Such as:
- The Schuylkill River in PA, meaning 'Hidden River River' (the first 'river' being the Dutch suffix 'kill')
- The Mississippi River, stretching from Canada to the Gulf and meaning 'Big River River' in Algonquin
- Laguna Lake in California, which any American schoolchild worth his salt could tell you means 'Lake Lake' in Spanish
- The River Avon in the UK, translated from Brythonic (modern Welsh: afon) to mean 'River River'
- Hayle Estuary in Cornwall is, as you can probably guess by now, 'Estuary Estuary'
- Loch Loch in Scotland...no excuse for this one, I don't think. But bear with me, they get more exciting...
- Rio Guadix in Spain means 'River River River': rio being Spanish, guad coming from Arabic wadi, while ix is Phoenician.
- Eas Fors Waterfall in Scotland is three times a waterfall, although I'm not exactly sure in what languages
Friday, March 19, 2010
Marching Orders
Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you. Fate is at your elbow; make yourself good while life and power are still yours.
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Bill Cowher, eat your heart out
The portrait above is apparently "idealized", but you can still make out the jutting lower jaw a la Kiera Knightley (or, if you prefer, Jay Leno). Not to mention the creepy baby hand. I don't know about that freaky pinky finger, but the jaw at least can be blamed on a case of history and science getting a little too close for comfort. This is mandibular prognathism, a condition where the lower jaw grows more rapidly than the upper, and was especially notable in all of the Habsburgs from about 1400 onwards. Exacerbated by their nasty habit of intermarrying, prognathism, or the Habsburg jaw, became so monstrous that by Charles II (three or four greats- back from Charles I, depending on which side of the family you count from), Spain quite literally had a dribbling idiot on the throne.
Hmm okay well I suppose that's a bit misleading - a whole host of recessive genetic nightmares were caught up in all that inbreeding, and so we can't blame idiocy on the jaw, but CharlieToo is a complete wreck: has a tongue so large it falls out of his mouth, can't chew, doesn't speak at all until age four, doesn't walk until eight, lisps and slurs, has severe mental deficiencies, has seizures, is impotent, and dies at 39 (sparking a war of succession). To his people, he was fondly known as Charles the Hexed.
Anyway. The jaw. It was supposedly introduced into the dynasty by Cymburgis of Masovia, but (according to Wikipedia at least) doesn't really become a problem until Maximilian I. And then those crazy Romans/Spaniards start shuffling around family members like a deck of cards until people can't eat anything but soup.
Well, I think I've just about covered it all, but if you want, you can read about all the gory details here (bonus: fun family tree!).
And don't marry your cousins!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
...With Love
Here's a little bit of virtuoso straight from Russia. (Although it is my personal belief that you don't need to know Russian to have this really speak to you.)
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
The nerdiest bit of humor I have found (to date)
So...I'm in the midst of studying for physics, and had to put Coulomb and Gauss on hold to review a bit of multivariate calculus (yay!?).
And then I found this gem of a derivative:
Sadly, physics is still not funny (or easy to remember). Ahhh...back to work.
And then I found this gem of a derivative:
Sadly, physics is still not funny (or easy to remember). Ahhh...back to work.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Musical Interlude
The name of this technique - slapping - though accurate, really fails to capture the extent to which it blows my mind.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Daylight Savings
If you missed it last night, don't forget to turn your clocks forward before Monday morning. I always enjoy falling back exponentially more than springing forward, but at least physics will be over one hour sooner.
And now...some facts about daylight saving time. Brought to you by Wikipedia.
Clearly, not all of the countries in the world 'celebrate' this tradition, but those that do have all gotten the idea from a guy named George Vernon Hudson, who, among other things, collected insects, made stained glass, and invented the concept of saving afternoon hours.
The initial rationale for subtracting an hour in spring and adding one during autumn (...have I got that right?) was - apparently - to do with conservation of incandescent lights. Not sure about that; Mr Hudson seems to primarily have been lobbying for more bug-collecting hours. More recently, DST has been correlated with increases in spending, and decreases in traffic accidents and crime.
Wikipedia has an interesting bit about history of time-keeping in their article, but I'm going to call it a digression, and instead get to the boring details of what the USA does to keep the economy high and the homicide rate low (???).
Unless you live in Arizona, Hawaii, or one of a number of territories, listen up. Up until 2006, the US had DST occur between the first Sunday of April and the last of October at 2:00am. Well, no longer! That is, the 2:00 part is the same, but it's now the second Sunday of March and the first of November. That's a whole additional month of DST - oh yipee.
So now you know it all...never again can daylight savings be used as an excuse for missing church.
One more little detail though, before I go: keep in mind that not all countries change at the same time - this is relevant for me because of calling the UK to talk to friends. For the next several weeks, the'll be just four hours ahead.
And now...some facts about daylight saving time. Brought to you by Wikipedia.
Clearly, not all of the countries in the world 'celebrate' this tradition, but those that do have all gotten the idea from a guy named George Vernon Hudson, who, among other things, collected insects, made stained glass, and invented the concept of saving afternoon hours.
The initial rationale for subtracting an hour in spring and adding one during autumn (...have I got that right?) was - apparently - to do with conservation of incandescent lights. Not sure about that; Mr Hudson seems to primarily have been lobbying for more bug-collecting hours. More recently, DST has been correlated with increases in spending, and decreases in traffic accidents and crime.
Wikipedia has an interesting bit about history of time-keeping in their article, but I'm going to call it a digression, and instead get to the boring details of what the USA does to keep the economy high and the homicide rate low (???).
Unless you live in Arizona, Hawaii, or one of a number of territories, listen up. Up until 2006, the US had DST occur between the first Sunday of April and the last of October at 2:00am. Well, no longer! That is, the 2:00 part is the same, but it's now the second Sunday of March and the first of November. That's a whole additional month of DST - oh yipee.
So now you know it all...never again can daylight savings be used as an excuse for missing church.
One more little detail though, before I go: keep in mind that not all countries change at the same time - this is relevant for me because of calling the UK to talk to friends. For the next several weeks, the'll be just four hours ahead.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Must...Pass...
Gam zeh ya'avor.
Which is a Jewish proverb meaning "this too shall pass"...the story the proverb comes from is quite interesting, actually. A great king, wishing to teach one of his courtiers a lesson, told him to find a thing that would cheer a sad man and make a happy man miserable. After a year of searching, the courtier was returning through the royal city and stopped to bemoan his failure to a local tradesman. The man, however, was not dismayed, and, taking a simple gold ring, scratched the above engraving. The king, once presented with the saying, was humbled, for he realized that, just as hard times may pass, so too all his wealth and power was a transient thing.
Abraham Lincoln also used this maxim in one of his speeches.
Which is a Jewish proverb meaning "this too shall pass"...the story the proverb comes from is quite interesting, actually. A great king, wishing to teach one of his courtiers a lesson, told him to find a thing that would cheer a sad man and make a happy man miserable. After a year of searching, the courtier was returning through the royal city and stopped to bemoan his failure to a local tradesman. The man, however, was not dismayed, and, taking a simple gold ring, scratched the above engraving. The king, once presented with the saying, was humbled, for he realized that, just as hard times may pass, so too all his wealth and power was a transient thing.
Abraham Lincoln also used this maxim in one of his speeches.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Plain English
Isn't it confusing...
Today I was having a conversation in which someone's manner was described as simultaneously "blunt and pointed"...
Which made me think of other strange features of our lovely language. Have you realized that cleave can mean both to separate and to join? Clip is the same way. Or how about raise and raze - when spoken, one never knows if buildings are going up or down.
I could totally start on my sweetbreads/meats tangent again, but...
Instead, I'll just furnish you with a link for some further uncommon words.
Today I was having a conversation in which someone's manner was described as simultaneously "blunt and pointed"...
Which made me think of other strange features of our lovely language. Have you realized that cleave can mean both to separate and to join? Clip is the same way. Or how about raise and raze - when spoken, one never knows if buildings are going up or down.
I could totally start on my sweetbreads/meats tangent again, but...
Instead, I'll just furnish you with a link for some further uncommon words.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Charles Rohlfs
The Carnegie Art Museum has a lovely collection of Charles Rohlfs' art nouveau style furniture on display for a short time that - if you are in the area - should definitely be checked out. A preview below:
Monday, March 8, 2010
When life hands you lemons...
Choose lemons that are even in color and shape, blemish-free, and heavy for their size.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Whoops
So I missed a day. Blogspot is forgiving though, and will let me backdate (and you should see how well I'm doing on my other Resolutions. Gym? What gym?).
Anyway, here is a helpful schematic flowchart thing.
Anyway, here is a helpful schematic flowchart thing.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Back Home
It's spring break, and so today I've driven back to the wintry North. Never better.
Here's a little quote from David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame) about traveling to new places and returning to old ones.
I really enjoy forgetting. When I first come to a place, I notice all the little details. I notice the way the sky looks. The color of white paper. The way people walk. Doorknobs. Everything. Then I get used to the place and I don't notice those things anymore. So only by forgetting can I see the place again as it really is.
Here's a little quote from David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame) about traveling to new places and returning to old ones.
I really enjoy forgetting. When I first come to a place, I notice all the little details. I notice the way the sky looks. The color of white paper. The way people walk. Doorknobs. Everything. Then I get used to the place and I don't notice those things anymore. So only by forgetting can I see the place again as it really is.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Fairy Tales
Today has been a real day for regressions...in my Wellness Requirement, we all laid on mats and learned how to take a short nap, and then I worked on some homework that was eerily similar to the circuit-building challenge of an old computer game I used to play (Gizmos and Gadgets? Anyone?)
Anyway, either I've never grown up, or I was never actually a kid.
And also, apparently it is Disney-themed month on Facebook? Who knows...everyone has been putting up photos of themselves as princesses. Spooky. I've never really been into Disney films, I don't think, but I have been into - am still into - folklore and fairy tales, and so that is what I shall discuss today.
You're probably familiar with Carl Jung and the idea of Archetypes, and of course Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces; but perhaps Aarne-Thompson Classification is new? I think it's interesting that so many old stories from all around the globe often have common threads running through them, and apparently so did Aarne and Thompson, because these commonalities are what the classification system is based on.
The four-hundreds, for instance, are stories with supernatural relatives, like Beauty and the Beast, the Frog Prince, or Snow White and Rose Red. The stories in the five-hundreds all contain magical helpers, from Rumpelstiltskin to various tellings of Cinderella, not to mention the Fisherman and his Wife. There are tales involving magical items, from Aladdin's lamp to magical rings to golden geese; and there are stories with talking animals - both wise and foolish. Once stories are organized like this into categories based on similar themes, characters, or messages, one can then pull apart the differences. I'm not quite sure what exactly is gained from that...an understanding of humanity? an appreciation for oral histories? a novel anthropological perspective? a load of picked-apart children's stories?...
Anyway, it's not a perfect system, but it's intriguing, and I like order (not to mention these types of stories), so it appeals. Perhaps it does to you, too.
Anyway, either I've never grown up, or I was never actually a kid.
And also, apparently it is Disney-themed month on Facebook? Who knows...everyone has been putting up photos of themselves as princesses. Spooky. I've never really been into Disney films, I don't think, but I have been into - am still into - folklore and fairy tales, and so that is what I shall discuss today.
You're probably familiar with Carl Jung and the idea of Archetypes, and of course Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces; but perhaps Aarne-Thompson Classification is new? I think it's interesting that so many old stories from all around the globe often have common threads running through them, and apparently so did Aarne and Thompson, because these commonalities are what the classification system is based on.
The four-hundreds, for instance, are stories with supernatural relatives, like Beauty and the Beast, the Frog Prince, or Snow White and Rose Red. The stories in the five-hundreds all contain magical helpers, from Rumpelstiltskin to various tellings of Cinderella, not to mention the Fisherman and his Wife. There are tales involving magical items, from Aladdin's lamp to magical rings to golden geese; and there are stories with talking animals - both wise and foolish. Once stories are organized like this into categories based on similar themes, characters, or messages, one can then pull apart the differences. I'm not quite sure what exactly is gained from that...an understanding of humanity? an appreciation for oral histories? a novel anthropological perspective? a load of picked-apart children's stories?...
Anyway, it's not a perfect system, but it's intriguing, and I like order (not to mention these types of stories), so it appeals. Perhaps it does to you, too.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Power of Tea Compels You
I haven't been too into science lately, but I am always into tea, and so here is some good solid evidence why that's not a bad thing.
Tea apparently has a lot of antioxidants - perhaps even more than certain fruits (I'm looking at you, blueberry). They come from tea flavenoids, and they stop free radicals from messing about and giving you cancer. More tea = less cancer.
Some rabid coffee drinker has probably come up to you at some point and told you, as they slurp down their venti doubleshot whatever, that coffee has less caffeine than tea. Well that may be true, pound-for-pound. But last time I checked, we drink those beverages, not eat them. At least, I haven't been snacking on tea leaves that I can recall. Sooo, because it takes fewer tea leaves than coffee grounds to make a cuppa, ipso facto, tea wins. Oh and furthermore, herbal teas have no caffeine at all.
Well those appear to be the biggies, but it's really just the tip of the iceberg. Here's a list of other possible health benefits tea can provide (okay some of these sound ridiculous...blame Wikipedia): increased metabolism; lowered cholesterol; decreased risk of depression; weight loss; improved mental alertness; strengthened immune response; decreased stress response; protection against everything from diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease to warts and HIV; and it might be able to save you if you get bitten by a snake??? Also, tea is a cure for halitosis.
Just saying.
Tea apparently has a lot of antioxidants - perhaps even more than certain fruits (I'm looking at you, blueberry). They come from tea flavenoids, and they stop free radicals from messing about and giving you cancer. More tea = less cancer.
Some rabid coffee drinker has probably come up to you at some point and told you, as they slurp down their venti doubleshot whatever, that coffee has less caffeine than tea. Well that may be true, pound-for-pound. But last time I checked, we drink those beverages, not eat them. At least, I haven't been snacking on tea leaves that I can recall. Sooo, because it takes fewer tea leaves than coffee grounds to make a cuppa, ipso facto, tea wins. Oh and furthermore, herbal teas have no caffeine at all.
Well those appear to be the biggies, but it's really just the tip of the iceberg. Here's a list of other possible health benefits tea can provide (okay some of these sound ridiculous...blame Wikipedia): increased metabolism; lowered cholesterol; decreased risk of depression; weight loss; improved mental alertness; strengthened immune response; decreased stress response; protection against everything from diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease to warts and HIV; and it might be able to save you if you get bitten by a snake??? Also, tea is a cure for halitosis.
Just saying.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Howl's Moving Castle
Okay, okay. Cartoons are for children and I am no longer a child. But watch this one anyway! Director Hayao Miyazaki is really one of the more credible directors of anime on the market, and his films are lovely and happy and cover decent themes like feminism and pacifism and environmentalism without bludgeoning one over the head with it.
Plus, this particular film is based on a book by Diana Wynne Jones, which makes everything okay. And the main character is magicked into an old woman for the majority of the time, so no worries about creepy manga romance. And there is magic and flying cars and a talking ball of fire voiced by Billy Crystal. And the animation looks a lot like this:
Okay a bit campy but generally a good time had by all. So at least give it a try. Because I love it.
Plus, this particular film is based on a book by Diana Wynne Jones, which makes everything okay. And the main character is magicked into an old woman for the majority of the time, so no worries about creepy manga romance. And there is magic and flying cars and a talking ball of fire voiced by Billy Crystal. And the animation looks a lot like this:
Okay a bit campy but generally a good time had by all. So at least give it a try. Because I love it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
