Three Children in a Marianas Trench-Coat

Earlier, I was discussing the rule that one shouldn't criticise a solution unless one was prepared to offer an alternative. As I am not the only Lovecraftian in my circle, the discussion swept over whether Yog-Sothothery was an exception, which reminded me of some strange realisations I had as a younger man about the casting …

What Strange Creature Bimbles…?

I often find rewards in computer games slightly puzzling, not merely in what they are but when they are received. For the last couple of weeks, I've been playing Sable, a game about a young woman undertaking her coming-of-age quest on a world that is a blend of many things from hunter-gatherer to high-tech. The …

Shattered Perception

Through the random electrical waves of the internet, a picture of a broken mug turned into a garden entered my stream today. The image had an aspirational text on it of perfect pleasantness; however, I was more interested in the image than that message so I tracked down the original. Freed of the need to …

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, and Anna Rosling Rönnlund

The Roslings offer a series of guidelines that might both avoid incorrect conclusions and make us happier. Growing from Hans Rosling’s experiences of people from all walks of life having a radically incorrect understanding of the world, sometimes even in their own field, this book offers ten nigh-ubiquitous but deeply flawed heuristics that lead to …

The Gateless Gate: The Classic Book of Zen Koans by Wumen Huikai and Yamada Koun

Yamada provides a series of explanations and comparisons that help place the ancient Chinese text in a modern context. This book interleaves Koun Yamada’s translation of Wumen’s Mumonkan, a classic Zen text, with Yamada’s own lectures on each of Wumen’s koan and supporting comments. The book is divided into forty eight chapters, each covering one …

Once There Was

Art is strange. Wonderful. Tragic. Beautiful. But strange. Much like this performance of Nina McNeely's contemporary dance piece “Once There Was III”. https://www.ted.com/talks/nina_mcneely_once_there_was_iii_a_mesmerizing_blend_of_dance_animation_and_tech The seven-minute piece is... well, what is it? Babylonian myth reset in the modern age? Cyberpunk? McNeely gives a few minutes of explanation after but is that what the piece is? Certainly …

Different But the Same

I am currently helping to design a Vampire LARP set in the early medieval period; part of this is obviously considering how to handle issues of race. Which set me to thinking that the classical perception of race that lingered into the medieval period is in some ways better than the way the United Kingdom …

A Verse about Childhood

A reminder that they don't make nostalgia like they used to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eVMWh71SmE You might wonder if there is some message behind my sharing this poem now... but I couldn't possibly comment.

Sharp Spear, Crystal Mirror: Martial Arts in Women’s Lives by Stephanie T. Hoppe

Focused primarily on the specifics of martial arts practice but also showing how those experiences pervade other areas, Hoppe provides female perspectives on what is stereotypically a very male world. Hoppe interviews a broad range of female martial artists, seeking similarities and differences in how martial arts have shaped their lives and how their experiences …

Speak Just Words to Me

The ability of the human mind to build patterns is wondrous and horrific. We can make instinctive judgements that avoid issues before we are even aware they exist or find our way through a city we've never visited without a map. But we can make instinctive judgements that create issues that didn't exist or lead …