The Reading Room

humn

9:01 AM

Okay, I dropped two feathers at Writers SE and got no echo.

Are these SE sites working so well that there's no rattle?

Once I was intimidated by official chat room status and now have the impression that no news is good news.

To quote, "whatever."

Rand al'Thor

9:54 AM

@Hamlet I trust your definition to be correct, but I don't know whether it's the only correct one :-)

"the single and the particular over the general", but it uses both word-by-word and sentence-by-sentence as examples of that.

"The Naming of Parts" is short enough that only word-by-word will be effective, but with a longer piece like a Sherlock Holmes story or even a novel, the author might not have chosen all the thousands of words so carefully as in a short poem, so word-by-word might be false precision and sentence-by-sentence a more effective approach.

I dunno, I'm just throwing ideas around here. I'm not any kind of expert, and clearly you have a lot more knowledge and experience of this stuff than I.

@humn The Writers SE chatroom is essentially dead. Lots of SE sites have no active chat. In fact, Puzzling was one of them for much of its history (active in 2014 until the end of the Great Puzzling War, then dead throughout 2015, livened up a bit with "Puzzles Etc" until that died, then dead again until the end of August 2016 when I came back and revitalised the Sphinx's Lair, which has been buzzing ever since).

Mithrandir

TSL wasn't that inactive before you came back.

humn

When my trmanshuformation is complete, I'm @Rand al'Thorizing.

So much to learn. So little grey matter.

Nice reference to Puzzling Etc. in any case! That's where i first felt welcome, thanks to Khale(however to spell that) and question_answerer

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir It really was. 27 Aug - nothing. 25-26 Aug - almost nothing. 24 Aug - people wondering why it's so quiet. 28-29 Aug (after I returned to main) - starting to get busier. 30-31 Aug (when I came back to tSL) - suddenly loads of messages and a tiny scrollbar.

humn

10:09 AM

Heard the canard? "Nature abhors a vacuum" (rhetorical question)

Gallifreyan

@Randal'Thor "Great Puzzling War" sounds interesting.

Rand al'Thor

@Gallifreyan It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.

humn

(Sure glad my internet connection just revived in time to see that!)

Ain't writing fun?!

Rand al'Thor

@humn J'ai entendu un canard, bien sur.

humn

Voi!

Hamlet

1:48 PM

@Randal'Thor no, it's not, close reading (word by word) is taught for many novels.

@Randal'Thor here is what the wikipedia article says:

> In literary criticism, close reading is the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of a text. A close reading emphasizes the single and the particular over the general, effected by close attention to individual words, the syntax, and the order in which the sentences unfold ideas, as the reader scans the line of text.

"brief passage of a text" -- not an entire book.

webcache.googleusercontent.com/…

Gallifreyan

Wanted to ask why on Earth would a bagel be waspy - found an answer myself, along with some sort of hate towards Daniel Clowes.

I don't even understand if they're accusing him of antisemitism or of the opposite.

Gallifreyan

2:36 PM

Today I learned a lot about WASP, Jewish culture in Ghost World‌, and even bagels.

Mithrandir

Bagels = yummy

Gallifreyan

But why is a bagel "waspy", and why is it a bad thing, and what's a non-waspy bagel?

Before I read about all this anglo-saxon-white-priveleged-protestant stuff, I thought Enid was joking about a previous conversation

To think of it, maybe she is.

Mithrandir

@Gallifreyan if a bagel is full of wasps I'd consider that bad ;)

Bookworm

0

Q: Why would one call a Japanese Jew "Sosumi"?

While doing some background research for another question about Daniel Clowes' Ghost World, I stumbled upon this article, which mentions the following exchange: . . . I don't get this. The first thing a search yields for "sosumi" is the Apple notification sound, and some further search shows ...

Mithrandir

@Bookworm I've never heard that term either.

Nothing in the Encyclopedia Judaica either.

Mithrandir

3:33 PM

Not sure how relevant it is, but it turns out that the Japanese word for 'lawsuit' is 'sosho' or something like that.

Gallifreyan

Мумий Тролль - Алмазами (live @ Мумий Тролль Music Bar)

►

I think I'll still ask my waspy bagel question, since I think it's an interesting historical discussion. But tomorrow, to work towards Socratic :)

Mithrandir

Is there anyone on the site that we know speaks Japanese?

Gallifreyan

There's a Japanese Stack :)

Mithrandir

I know, I'm heading over there to look at it now :P

Mithrandir

4:08 PM

@Gall this question may be relevant

7

Q: Why are there so many references to Moneylenders and Jews in 19th century fiction?

In 19th century fiction, there are a lot of references to moneylenders as "Jews". For example, in "Framley Parsonage", by Anthony Trollope, Lord Lufton says "the pocket-books of the Jews are stuffed full of his dishonoured papers". What is the purpose of these references? Would 19th century rea...

historical-context racism

(I tried asking something in the Japanese Language chat but it doesn't appear to be so active)

Gallifreyan

@Mithrandir Indeed, but mine seems to be more about lawsuits. I've heard about the money part before, though it wasn't as prominent in Russia where I grew up.

Gallifreyan

5:44 PM

^ @Shokhet Recognise the character on the shirt?

Wow, Marc Hempel has too many great Sandman arts. Gotta reblog them all.

^ Talk about Morpheus looking like Neil Gaiman. He's even got the trademark scarf here (cc @Hamlet)

Shokhet

6:14 PM

@Gallifreyan This one reminds me of Warbreaker:

Gallifreyan

7:41 PM

I decided against asking about Enid being anti-Semitic, because she's clearly not.

Hamlet

@Gallifreyan ?

Mithrandir

1

Q: Why would one call a Japanese Jew "Sosumi"?

While doing some background research for another question about Daniel Clowes' Ghost World, I stumbled upon this article, which mentions the following exchange: . . . I don't get this. The first thing a search yields for "sosumi" is the Apple notification sound, and some further search shows ...

comics daniel-clowes ghost-world

Gallifreyan

Took me another read through some quotes.

Shokhet

8:10 PM

@Gallifreyan I meant 3 down and 4 across. Lemme see if I can draw a picture.

Gallifreyan

8:25 PM

@Shokhet But that's not what the answerer meant, is it? He means a 9-panel grid, yes, but yours is a 12-panel grid. I fail to see the connection.

Shokhet

@Gallifreyan Then why didn't you say that's what you were wondering when I brought up 4x4? That makes a 16-panel grid.

Oh! I misunderstood your objection to the answer. My bad.

Are x-by-x grids really the most common type of panelling? The examples in your question don't really have formal grids like that, at all.

(And the example in your answer, from Death Vigil, is even more crazy)

Gallifreyan

@Shokhet I don't think they are, though I don't think I can provide any evidence either way. But I know for a fact that I didn't see any other comic which would have a grid as strict as Watchmen.

Shokhet

8:52 PM

@Gallifreyan Fair enough.

btw did you see Joshua's comment on my Sosumi answer?

Gallifreyan

Now I did. I don't think it's self-hatred in context, it's more being sarcastic. E.g. later an anti-Semitic (idiot) acquaintance of hers says "Shalom, Enid Cohn", and she answers with "Sieg Heil!". It's just a part of her dark humour.

Shokhet

@Gallifreyan Ah, okay.

Like I said before, I have not read those comics; I wouldn't have been able to tell you whether Enid has a dark sense of humor. Looks like Joshua knows what he's talking about, though.

(Wonder why he deleted his answer?)

humn

Why has the reading room more keystrokes than the writing room?

Mithrandir

Because we're chattier ;)

humn

Love it!

... really? another flow successfully and unintentionally staunched? i should just shut up and keep watching.

One of these days everyone's fingers (or chins) will jump off the cliff just because someone else did.

... sorry ... back to watching political TV ...

Hamlet

9:27 PM

@humn yeah, asking why a chat room is (a) active or (b) inactive doesn't increase the activity of said chat room.

humn

What a paradox!

I still want to rouse keystrokes at Writing SE. I'm an editor, dammit, and need grist for the mill.

(Just realized that editors are damnable. Now for disguise.)

Mithrandir

10:21 PM

Huh. Was Adam Lear a mod on the previous incarnation of Lit? O_o

This guy was also an old Lit mod. If we could grab him back it might be good.

TML, Orem, UT

9.7k 3 25 39

php javascript mysql python arrays jquery html

(aaaand I'm off)

BESW

Lovely exchange between JK Rowling & a young lady who grew up with Harry Potter during a very troubled childhood.… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/879376342701289472

Tweeted by LettersOfNote on June 26, 2017 at 4:30 PM

Rand al'Thor

11:22 PM

@Hamlet I'd be interested to see an example of that in action. Sentence-by-sentence reading, or plucking particularly pertinent phrases from throughout a book in order to build a coherent picture or prove a point, is easy to imagine; I've done it in that Holmes answer and also my recenter TenSoon answer. But I'm having trouble imagining how word-by-word close reading could establish anything about a novel which is interesting on a broad level, rather than just relevant to a particular passage.

Is close reading of a novel, then, useful only to analyse single passages and not so much the work as a whole?

@Mithrandir Isn't there a Japanese SO too? Or is it only Chinese?

@Mithrandir Yes, but I think he stepped down as mod before the site went belly-up.

user15026

@Mithrandir Yes, for part of it at least

Rand al'Thor

11:41 PM

@TML Hi TML, I'm throwing you a ping in case you weren't aware that Literature SE has been reborn :-) We noticed you were a mod on the old Lit but haven't set up an account on the new one - would be great if you'd like to join and help the new one succeed where the old one failed!

Shokhet

Wow. An upvote in <27 seconds. I'm impressed!

Rand al'Thor

@Shokhet You're welcome.

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor Thank you :)

You must be a very fast reader :P

Rand al'Thor

The trouble with a well-researched question, though, is that it's often hard to answer precisely because it's so well researched.

Shokhet

Yes, well. I suspect that the information I'm looking for just doesn't exist :/

Rand al'Thor

11:49 PM

@Shokhet Yep - that's what too much practice does :-)

Shokhet

@Randal'Thor Fair point :)

Bookworm

1

Q: Is there any indication that Poe feared live burial?

Many of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories feature burial while alive; in one case, the subject of the story actually suffers from taphophobia before his own live burial. (Wikipedia helpfully includes a list of "Burial while alive in other Poe works" on the "The Premature Burial" page.) It is a com...

history-of-literature edgar-allan-poe

Transcript for