The Reading Room

12:00 AM

@Randal'Thor if there is a response it's probably online. It's just that I don't think Pratchett is that important to warrant a response from anyone not in the "nerddom"

BESW

Since there's solid crossover between academia and nerds, I hold out hope.

Hamlet

Anyway, I have to go (unfortunately to do work).

BESW

And narratives focused on depictions of Pacific peoples are rare enough that it hardly matters how notable the person doing the depiction is, some Pacific scholar is going to seize on it for a publication somewhere.

Rand al'Thor

@BESW How notable is Pratchett over there?

He's pretty well-known here, but, well, this is his country.

Hamlet

@BESW lol I lied, I'm back. If academic criticism counts, then try this

grin.com/en/e-book/193476/…

(it's behind a paywall and I can't access it, but maybe you can?)

BESW

12:10 AM

@Randal'Thor I can only speak to my own experience on an American-owned English-speaking island; he's standard fodder in the geek community. Nerds have heard of him even if they haven't read him.

Hamlet

I don't know why academic criticism would count as an "official" response, but if it works for you...

anyway, I really got to get to work. night

BESW

Nobody said anything about official; it'd be ridiculous to think that an entire ocean of cultures could have an official response to anything.

Academia is where the discourse on this sort of thing is most likely to be found, and I'm asking about what the discourse is.

It looks like an interesting paper if I can get my hands on it, but I'm not sure it's a Pacific paper. [looks into author] Maybe it'll have Pacific resources I can track down anyway?

Welp, while I'm here I might as well plug "terry pratchett" into the RFK database.

@Randal'Thor The geek community on Guam is, by my experience, about the same as the geek community in mainland America, with a bit more anime and Korean drama and fewer board games.

Rand al'Thor

9:37 AM

Downvoting (and tempted to close) because this question is very broad: one could presumably write an entire answer about each one of those gifts. This question would do better if it was focused on one specific gift — Hamlet ♦ 4 hours ago

@Hamlet (and whoever upvoted that comment): seriously? Do you really think any reasonable answer about the symbolism of a particular one f the twelve types of gift wouldn't also cover the symbolism of all the others? Do you think there is any theory about the symbolic meaning of one which isn't part of a broader theory about all of them?

I mean, who the hell sits down and says "OK, here's what the 'swans a-swimming' means, but I have no idea and don't care about any of the other 11 lines in the same 12-part song"?

Plus, do you really want me to spam the site with twelve nearly identical questions about the same song, each of which would be best answered with exactly the same answer - namely, a unified explanation of the symbolism behind all twelve?

Valorum

10:05 AM

@Hamlet - Surely it's the opposite. Posting a literary analysis of the word "great" in the Great Gatsby helps no-one unless they're writing a homework assignment. Finding someone a lost book helps them directly.

@Randal'Thor - Did he give her twelve partridges (one each day) or just one partridge?

Bookworm

11:38 AM

0

Q: Did the recipient receive twelve partridges or just one?

In the song The Twelve Days of Christmas, did the recipient receive a single partridge or did they receive one partridge each day for twelve days? On the First day of Christmas my true love sent to me a Partridge in a Pear Tree. On the Second day of Christmas my true love sent to me ...

song-lyrics

Bookworm

1:13 PM

0

Q: How many were going to St. Ives?

The traditional nursery rhyme/riddle "As I was Going to St. Ives" appears to have a simple answer Q. How many were there going to St. Ives? A. Just the traveler. But is this what the author originally intended? Surely he could have met the man, his harem and and his menagerie traveling in the s...

song-lyrics

Bookworm

1:26 PM

0

Q: How did the man going from/coming to St Ives have seven wives?

Wikipedia indicates that the classic riddle "As I was Going to St Ives" was written at some point in the 1700s or 1800s. As I was going to St Ives I met a man with seven wives Bigamy, however has been illegal in the UK since at least the 1600s and prior to that, a breach of ecclesiastical...

song-lyrics

Valorum

@Bookworm - Imagine having seven mother's-in-law. /Shudders.

BESW

I awoke with an important question on my mind. Would you rather read 50 book-sized libraries or one library-sized book?

Tweeted by john_overholt on April 8, 2017 at 11:11 AM

Beastly Gerbil

Woah. Imagine a library sized book

Hamlet

4:20 PM

@Valorum this site is never going to have much practical value. Do you think literature has practical value? I don't think whether a question has practical value is a good criteria for whether it's a good question on this site.

Gallifreyan

6:26 PM

@Randal'Thor Hat tip My respect for you just doubled. It's funny that I've just been to a vegan cafe today with my friends. Hadn't had the opportunity to try anything, but it looked delicious.

(Yes, I know vegetarian != vegan.)

user15026

There's a vegan (I think, vegetarian for sure with possibly just a bunch of vegan options) cafe near me that makes a really good brownie. Until a friend pointed out it was vegan, I'd never have thought about it as anything other than a delicious thing to have with my tea.

Gallifreyan

Speaking of veg[eteri]ans: are you alive, @Riker?!

Rand al'Thor

@Gallifreyan You're in Turkey, right? What's it like there in terms of catering for vegetarians?

Mithrandir

@Gallifreyan he mentioned that he was on vacation or something.

in Charcoal HQ, Apr 2 at 13:27, by Riker

Now I'm out, supposed to be on vacation :p see ya

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor Not being a vegetarian myself, I have to admit I've never looked at food here from that perspective; yet it's easy to notice that the diet here is mostly meat-oriented. Here in central Anatolia, where almost nothing good grows, being a vegetarian is (I imagine) hard. In that cafe we visited my friend had a falafel, which is actually not very rare here, but and average restaurant you walk in will probably have < 3 vegetarian entries at best.

That said, salads, with cheese of various types, are pretty common, and I've seen a trend now that some of the newer and young-oriented cafes and restaurants have a decent block in their menus reserved for vegetarians.

Rand al'Thor

6:44 PM

@Gallifreyan I'd like to see more users here who have site privs without being mods. (Sorry, @Mith, you don't count.) Hoping for Riker and @HDE to start posting again.

Gallifreyan

Obviously, I know nothing about exact dishes, but overall Turkish culture is poorly adapted for vegetarianism.

Rand al'Thor

@Gallifreyan Pity. Somehow I imagine Turkish cuisine as having lots of fruit and vegetables and being pretty good for vegetarians.

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor for some reason I imagine them eating... turkey.

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor Sadly, their main dishes seem to be dominated by at least some form of meat (mostly minced), submerged in some hideous tomato sauce.

Tomato sauce is ubiquitous here.

This is the cafe I went to. They have some pictures as well.

It's different when you go to seaside areas. There it's fish and raki (Turkish vodka), but at least they serve some leaves along with the wish.

Rand al'Thor

@Gallifreyan Oh, you're in Ankara? Not at Cankaya University by any chance?

Gallifreyan

6:49 PM

@Randal'Thor No, why? :D

Rand al'Thor

(feel free not to answer, of course)

@Gallifreyan Ah, never mind then.

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor That one has the most deceptive name: "Çankaya" is the name of the central district of Ankara, and the central district in that district, but the university itself is on the outskirts of the city. It is a symbolic name though, but funny to some extent. My 12th grade English teacher is from Çankaya University.

@Randal'Thor I'm in Ankara, just not at that university.

Bookworm

8:22 PM

0

Q: Why is there a focus on the atmosphere in The Fall of the House of Usher?

In The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allen Poe has several spots where he talks about the gloomy, cloudy, atmosphere: As I looked at the house, it seemed to me that it was being wrapped in a strange vaporous cloud. A mystic fog seemed to rise from the decaying trees and nearby swamp until...

edgar-allan-poe house-of-usher

Mithrandir

I posted my House of Usher question, @Randal'Thor.

I probably could have phrased it better, but it's slightly crazy around here right now, Sooo....

Gallifreyan

@Mithrandir Craziness loves my companyyyy, oooh

No wait, that's not how it was.

@Mithrandir Why is it crazy though?

Mithrandir

@Gallifreyan Pesach. (passover)

Have to completely clean the house of all bread, and pour boiling water all over the kitchen, and clean the car, etc, etc.

(I'd also really like to know why this is receiving downvotes.)

Gallifreyan

@Mithrandir Spoilers?

Mithrandir

@Gallifreyan whoops, have you not read it?

Gallifreyan

8:32 PM

@Mithrandir I have, but as I indicated in my old comment under that question: the title is now spoiler-free, but the body has some spoilers still.

I don't think there's anything to be done about that, but people may have gotten spoiled and left a downvote just because

Mithrandir

I'm considering rolling back Hamlet's edit; the only large spoiler block was the quote,which if you know what you're talking about you don't really need...

Gallifreyan

Dunno, doesn't seem like a question that deserves to be downvoted, in my opinion.

Mithrandir

9:11 PM

I've got around 4 more questions that I've been meaning to ask, but I don't have the time to sit and type it all at once :/ Hopefully over the next... couple weeks, I guess, I'll get them out.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir About which books?

Mithrandir

One of them requires heading to the library and actually looking at the translation, so that might have to wait as I think they're closed for a bit.

Rand al'Thor

Btw, did you get going on Hard to Be a God yet?

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor narrows eyes and listens carefully

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor one of them is about PJO and it's Hebrew translation, one about an account of the Holocaust, and two about a short story in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

49 mins ago, by Mithrandir

I probably could have phrased it better, but it's slightly crazy around here right now, Sooo....

In other words, no.

I haven't even been on the laptop in the last couple days.

Rand al'Thor

9:15 PM

Hey, @Mithrandir, is it hard to be an Istari?

Hard to be a Mod, the TL manual.

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor of course, you have to deal with goblins and wargs and orcs and Hobbits and balrogs and evil wizards and evil men and deluded men and a host of other things, too!

(who's the deluded man? Anyone know?)

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir I like how you put hobbits in the middle of that list :-P

Mithrandir

:P

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir Denethor?

Mithrandir

*claps*

Rand al'Thor

9:18 PM

*Denethor son of Ecthelion, last ruling Steward of Gondor?

Mithrandir

*applauds*

I thought you would add some more so that I could up the notch of the clapping q bit more :P

Rand al'Thor

Eh, I can't think of any more to add offhand.

I may be a sad case, but I don't recall the name of Denethor's grandfather.

</douglas_adams>

Mithrandir

10:01 PM

We have 668 open, not deleted questions, in case anyone is interested.

You can add 13 closed, not-deleted questions to that.

And 85 deleted questions :/

Bookworm

11:04 PM

0

Q: Why did the Seed-Merchant thank God?

"The Seed-Merchant's Son" is a poem by Agnes Grozier Herbertson, often included in collections of WWI poetry. It doesn't go into the details of the war, like some other WWI poems; in fact, the war is only mentioned once in the poem, which mainly focuses on the father's reaction to his son's death...

poetry agnes-grozier-herbertson

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