Two booksellers are making a case for the authorship of notes in John Baret‘s An Alvearie or Quadruple Dictionarie, published in 1580. They hope to prove that the marginalia is Shakespeare’s. They have scanned the 300-page dictionary to open it up to the world for review and possible help.
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Poetry, Brutality In the News
Austin Kleon shows us how he makes his newspaper marker poems. “Creativity is subtraction,” he demonstrates. I like this, but I think I lean toward more random, more crazy poetic expressions, like this dadaist poem I collected from the blogosphere of 2006.
“This bosses the suggests think Geographic
Washington dogg eu em gasolina
Companhia many book towards Down
Weman probably its USS Neverdock
To haven’t you’re difference am curriculum
first”
You can’t beat that, I tell you.
Also found in the news, much like the marker poems, is this blowback to an NYPD twitter campaign. They asked New Yorkers to post photos of #myNYPD. Did shots of smiles and helpful cops dominate the responses? No, they got more of takedowns and wrestling.
A Meditative Video of Ceramic Masters at Work
Video: Ceramic Masters at work. This is beautiful. What marvelous work.
TV Storytelling Tropes In a Periodic Table
A trope is a convention, sometimes a cliché, that may be used as a formula for a specific purpose in a story. The quest, foreshadowing, or the faithful sidekick could be considered tropes for their implementation within a story. James R. Harris has given us a periodic table of the information found on TVtroupes.org, weighting each item in kilowicks (thousands of links to the relevant page on the site). To give you a taste of this potential guard against clichés in your own stories, here are items organized under “Setting, laws, plots” with their popularity rating:
- An Aesop 3.0
- Serious Business 4.0
- The Masquerade 1.7
- Recycled IN SPACE 3.2
- X Meets Y 2.3
- Magic A Is Magic A 0.75
- Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism 1.6
- Status Quo Is God 2.0
- Call To Adventure 0.43
- Redemption Quest 0.20
- The Hero’s Journey 0.28
- Saving the World 0.38
- They Fight Crime .58
Of course, I picked the tame category. The plot device category has fun things like “Applied Phlebotinum“, an object or substance used to advance the plot. Here’s a good bit of dialogue as an example:
Nick Naylor: Cigarettes in space?
Jeff Megall: It’s the final frontier, Nick.
Nick Naylor: But wouldn’t they blow up in an all-oxygen environment?
Jeff Megall: (beat) Probably. But, you know, it’s an easy fix. One line of dialogue: ‘Thank God we created the, you know, whatever device.‘
— Thank You For Smoking
(via Fast CoDesign)
Twelve Reasons Why God Can’t Get Tenure, Rebuttal
Twelve top reasons why God can’t get tenure (from the Internet of Yesteryear)
- He’s authored only one paper
- That paper was in Hebrew
- His work appeared in an obscure, unimportant publication
- He never references other authors
- Workers in the field can’t replicate His results.
- He failed to apply to the ethics committee before starting His experiments on humans.
- He tried to cover an experiment’s unsatisfatory results by drowning the subjects.
- When subjects behavior proved his theory wrong he had them removed from the sample.
- He hardly ever shows up for any lectures. He merely assigns His Book again and again.
- His office is at the top of a mountain, and He doesn’t keep office hours anyway.
- When He learned that His first two students sought wisdom, He had them expelled.
- His exams consist of only ten assigments which most students fail.
Rebuttal: Why God Did Receive Tenure.
- The one publication was a Citation Classic.
- The Hebrew original was widely translated courtesy of the author.
- Being written before journals existed, references were hard to come by.
- Original treatises that found a new area often require their own monograph.
- Although research has been sparse since the Creation, the professor has taught a number of courses: Human anatomy 212; Ancient Middle Eastern History 101, 102; Hydrology 207; Human Development 350; seminar on Egyptology; extended field trips to the deserts between Egypt and Palestine; Politics of Theocracies 277; Military Science Special Topic: Use of Voice as a Municipal Assault Weapon; Criminology 114; guest lectures in the Vet School: Digestive Anatomy of Whales; Wisdom & Ethics 550; Special seminar: Fertilization without sperm; Winemaking 870; Healing by miracle 987; Theology 101, 102, 230, 342, 350, 466H, and 980.
- The substitute teacher (son) was highly committed to his work.
- The substitute teacher cancelled the original ten requirements.
- The twelve teaching assistants formed numerous discussion groups.
- The substitute teacher knew students names without an attendance sheet.
- The professor’s weekly Sunday lectures by surrogate instructors are attended by 974 million students.
Just Stop It, Writers
Barnabas Piper tells us to stop writing about writing, because we don’t really have anything to say.
“When Stephen King writes a book about writing I read it cover to cover and then start over. And it is marvelous. When a thirty-something, barely published, Internet composer of public journal entries does so, it’s uppity.”
Yeah. Sorry about that.
‘Biblically Based’ Author Argues Against Biblical Morality
Matthew Vines is not a new author. He has been around for a few years, arguing that Christianity and homosexuality are not incompatible. He has a new book coming out next week making the same arguments, but the bigger news may be who is publishing it. It’s Stephen W. Cobb, the chief executive of both WaterBrook Multnomah and the new imprint Convergent.
Cobb says the two imprints do not have the same audiences and editorial guidelines, so they aren’t the identical, but he does call the final shots for both. With Convergent, those shots are “nonfiction for less traditional Christians and spiritual seekers who are drawn to an open, inclusive, and culturally engaged exploration of faith,” such as Matthew Vines’ new book, God and the Gay Christian.
World Magazine makes a big deal about these imprints being unified under one corporate umbrella, but what strikes me as odd is Cobb’s insistence that he isn’t publishing heresy under the Convergent label. He claims Vines’ “believes in the inerrancy and the divinity and the correctness of Scripture,” so his book is “biblically based.” He says he intends to publish only biblically based books through Convergent.
How orthodox does a “biblically based” book need to be in order to remain based on the Bible? The Book of Mormon and the Koran are literally based on the Bible, but would we call them “biblically based”? If this is the main criteria, then I would understand a wide variety of views being published, but we expect more, don’t we?
How much orthodox stock do you put into this publisher or any publisher? Do you notice the publisher of a book and believe the topic, whatever it is, has been thoroughly vetted? Do you believe WaterBrook is still committed to “creating products that both intensify and satisfy the elemental thirst for a deeper relationship with God,” as their marketing people say?
Yes, Even When He Is Silent
Here we have the St. Olaf Choir with Conductor Anton Armstrong performing “Even When He Is Silent” by Kim André Arnesen. It was recorded at Nidaros Cathedral, Trondheim, Norway on June 16, 2013
The piece was commissioned by the St. Olaf Festival in Trondheim, Norway (Olavsfestdagene), using a text was found in a concentration camp after World War II:
“I believe in the sun, even when it’s not shining.
I believe in love, even when I feel it not.
I believe in God, even when He is silent.”
But, Lord, do not be silent or allow us to be deaf.
Swedish Book Review
“Hype is an overrated and overused tool, but the power of compelling narrative endures, hence the sprouting of new Swedish literary agencies with names like Partners in Stories and Storytellers. They have an eye to lucrative film rights, of course, but few would deny the seductiveness of a good plot.”
The Swedish Book Review is out with several takes on books you may want to watch for. (via The Literary Saloon, the place to go for translated fiction.)
Pilgrims’ Hymn by Stephen Paulus
Pilgrim’s Hymn by Stephen Paulus
Even before we call on Your name
To ask You, O God,
When we seek for the words to glorify You,
You hear our prayer;
Unceasing love, O unceasing love,
Surpassing all we know.
Glory to the father,
and to the Son,
And to the Holy Spirit.
Even with darkness sealing us in,
We breathe Your name,
And through all the days that follow so fast,
We trust in You;
Endless Your grace, O endless Your grace,
Beyond all mortal dream.
Both now and forever,
And unto ages and ages,
Amen