The Reading Room - 2017-02-13 (page 1 of 2)

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12:23 AM

The Medium Is the Massage

The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects is a book co-created by media analyst Marshall McLuhan and graphic designer Quentin Fiore, and coordinated by Jerome Agel. It was published by Bantam books in 1967 and became a bestseller with a cult following. The book is 160 pages in length and composed in an experimental, collage style with text superimposed on visual elements and vice versa. Some pages are printed backwards and are meant to be read in a mirror (see Mirror writing). Some are intentionally left blank. Most contain photographs and images both modern and historic, juxtaposed in...

12:54 AM

"Introduction to Poetry," by Billy Collins.

3 hours later…

3:58 AM

0

Q: Razzle Dazzle cheer song reference

I would like to know what a particular line in the following cheer poem is a reference to. Razzle Dazzle Leader: My name is (your name) I'm number one My reputation has just begun So if you see me Step aside Cause I ain't got the time Response: Ooh! She thinks ...

4 hours later…

8:10 AM

*yawn*

user61230

Found a cool service. Takes three authors you love, and recommends more authors based on those suggestions.

4

user61230

I like it, because it's customizable. If you're looking for something in a specific genre, all you have to do is pick three authors in that genre. If you want something more varied, pick more varied selections.

@Emrakul Because I like Margery Allingham, Ann Leckie, and James Gurney, I might like Hans Holtzer... and Google is sure I mean Hans Holzer, so I'm not quite sure what's going on.

It does give interesting results.

user61230

8:31 AM

Yeah. It's not 100% perfect, but it's pretty good at what it does.

[punches in Leckie, Bujold, and Wrede]
[gets Hurley and Samatar]
Seems legit.

Hmmm.

Based on your choices, Gnod predicts you might like the literature of
Fernando Del Paso

Let's get dangerous. Epeli Hauʻofa, Liliuokalani, and Albert Wendt.

Hah! Gnooks doesn't know Epeli Hauʻofa.

I am pleased by the esoteric nature of this recommendation, but I'm not actually sure he's got anything translated to English.

Google says he does.

8:37 AM

...ok, its next recommendation is "a speaker, career/lifestyle coach, and best-selling author of seven books on goal achievement."

I feel like every single one of the authors I chose would get hives at being categorized with goal-achievement books :(

@BESW Oh hey, I guess he does!

> One of the acknowledged masterpieces of Mexican literature, Fernando del Paso's News from the Empire is a powerful and encyclopedic novel of the tragic lives of Maximilian and his wife, Carlota, the short-lived Emperor and Empress of Mexico.

Let's try poets. Roger White, Ogden Nash, Robert Hayden.

> Simultaneously intimate and panoramic, the narrative flows from Carlota's fevered memories of her husband's ill-fated empire to the multiple and conflicting accounts of a broad cast of characters who bore witness to the events that first placed the hapless couple on their puppet thrones, and then as swiftly removed them.

I've got to admit, that sounds pretty awesome.

I was totally run of the mill with mine.

OK, mostly run of the mill.

Karen Joy Fowler, Orson Scott Card, Joe Hill.

Robert Service. Spot. On. [applause]

@BESW : I am impressed by your breadth of actually knowing some poets :)

...and having preferences between them!

user61230

@BESW I'm surprised it picked up poets, actually.

8:43 AM

[grin] I generally lean toward doggerel, but I occasionally enjoy poets with more lofty aspirations.

Maybe YOU are the expert who can help OP with their question on the Razzle Dazzle cheer song, tagged poetry :P

> If I aspire to be a saint
Think not that this is due
To predilection for the goal
But shortness of the queue.
- Roger White

@BESW :D

And, well. How can anyone NOT love "The Cremation of Sam McGee" (read here by Johnny Cash)?

(To be fair, I come from a family of poetry-readers and -reciters, so I don't come into it alone.)

@Standback I don't know much about cheers, but a quick Google suggests that particular cheer is a mashup of at least two others. I wouldn't be surprised if the mashup mixed the message a bit and the MO is either taken out of context or is a mondegreen.

But I can't easily trace its origin.

On the subject of poetry, since it's Black History Month in America I'll recommend the poetry of Robert Hayden, which would probably tick him off to no end.

(Hayden faced a lot of criticism for refusing to accept laurels on the basis of his race, insisting on the label "American writer" rather than any narrower category based on his ethnicity.)

9:09 AM

@Standback it's not tagged poetry anymore... *wink*

@Mithrandir I'm BESW and I approve of this edit.

sigh yeah, OK, song lyrics are on topic.

But camp cheers? You're saying camp cheers should be on topic?

Make a case for them being off topic that doesn't involve some variation on "they're not culturally valuable" and I'll listen.

They're never transcribed authoritatively,

Neither is the Bible (not from a literary perspective, anyway).

9:19 AM

And nonsense words are common in them, making "meaning" questions like this one silly.

@BESW I would not shed a tear if the Bible were off-topic, but that's for different reasons :P

A good answer would then demonstrate that the phrase in question can be reasonably considered nonsense--not all of a cheer is nonsense.

(Ogden Nash, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, and Dr. Seuss are on topic, right?)

Anyway, the Bible has multiple established versions. You can meaningfully ask questions about a specific version, or comparing between versions. That's different than "we have no idea where the heck this came from, but we totally heard people sing it at camp".

If somebody asked what a Zerrilous Zax is, I'd say that were a pretty bad question.

Okay, so the version the querent heard is the one they're asking about, and a familiarity with variations is part of the expert knowledge we'd hope to attract.

"I heard somebody say these words; what do they mean" is not a solid basis for an SE site, nor for attracting expertise.

And yet, it's kinda ELL's raison d'être.

9:25 AM

Point me to authoritative versions, and I'll accept it as on-topic. (Although possibly still low-quality.)
You want to compare versions of Mother Goose nursery rhymes, I'm down with that.
But "we've got this camp cheer passing around; somebody made it up once; I think these are the words"?
That's about as expertise-y as "Somebody posted these words on Facebook, what is their significance"?

We're not ELL.

Then don't make generalisations about the whole network to support topicality for this site.

Let's focus on what's actually gonna be supportable.

What's the difference between Mother Goose variations and camp cheer variations?

I'd say ELL is an extreme outlier here. It's massively different than most SE sites, in that it's specifcially aimed at learners, not experts.

@BESW Some minimal level of knowing the lyrics are "real", for some level of "real."

I'm not sure what you mean by "real." I think there's an epistemology issue here somewhere.

And some minimal level of notability.
You wouldn't accept "My friend just wrote a song, what does this line mean?"

...I mean, maybe you would.

Yes we would...

9:32 AM

But then we get to be ELL, as long as you say that whatever you're asking about is actually a poem. :-/

4

Q: Does literature have to be "professionally" published?

In this day and age, you don't need a publishing house to publish a book. Self-publishing is possible and happening. There are several popular web serials (including, but not limited to, fan fiction). Do works have to be professionally published to count as literature, and if so, what counts as "...

discussion scope

So when Ursula Vernon published Summer in Orcus as a free serial novel on her website, it didn't count, but once she published it as an ebook on Amazon it did?

^relevant discussion

@Mithrandir : There is a certain gap between "not professionally published" and "literally something I just scrawled on my napkin."

You can go ahead and draw the line in a way that includes the napkin, if that's what you want to do.

This is impromptu / what is the meaning of this / I have no idea

9:35 AM

I see it as an issue of whether we can deal with it as literature. If we can treat it as literature (eg, use the methods of literary analysis and critique) to answer the question then I don't have a problem with where it came from. Napkin scrawls are liable to run afoul of our other close reasons, I see no need to invent new ones.

Oh good, now I'll be able to create a mithrandir tag! :D

2

If a napkin scrawl question is otherwise answerable, the napkin don't matter to me.

:D

@BESW I'm cool with that. How do you use the methods of literary analysis and critique on the M.O./macho question?

זה לא עמיתי / אולי זה כן עמיתי / אז אין לי מושג

9:38 AM

mithrandir hebrew-language israeli-author poetry

existentialism

haiku

No room :P

@Standback By close reading for context clues and studying influential works (eg, the cheers which inspired it) to see if it's an artefact from an earlier inspirational text. Sorta like speculating that Tom Bombadil is an artefact of an early LotR draft which was going to be more Hobbit-y in tone, or comparing Eärendil with Orwandel.

And, yanno, there are books of camp songs. Lots of them. Many more "official" than any book of Mother Goosery.

@BESW That kind of approach is going to have practically every question left open because it might conceivably be answered by just the right expert.

@BESW And if they'd referenced one of them, I'd have way less issue with the question. :)

Ten minutes on the Google showed me that the quoted song is a variant mashup of at least two other songs--but the relephant lyrics' content aren't in evidence anywhere, though their format is clearly taken from one of the two songs I identified.

@Standback Oh, it's pretty common in almost exactly the form quoted.

The chorus in question is word-for-word on a half-dozen sites I easily dregged up using much broader search terms.

You may be underestimating the consistency of oral tradition.

It's pretty interesting; the song's re-jiggered the call/response format of an older work to better accommodate a larger, less rehearsed group being led by a single experienced person or a small group of experienced people. And during that re-jiggering they added the MO line which I haven't found anywhere else.

This leads me to believe it's a mondegreen, but that makes it a lot harder to track down.

You're saying a good answer would trace the origins of the mashup and uncover why those particular lines were added?

9:47 AM

If that's indeed what happened.

I see what you're saying.

I guess I'd be more on board with that if I felt that was what the question was asking?

If I asked what's up with Tolkien's story of Eärendil and the Traveling Star, a good answer would trace it back to the Norse myth of Orwandel and Venus.

@Standback If there were an easier way to answer the question, I'd go for that.

But I don't see any obvious answer except "It's nonsense," and I reject that as a first line of action because the rest of the cheer is quite coherent.

(Again, close reading is a literary analysis skill, and here it's telling me that a cheer with consistent subject/verb agreement and no nonsense phrases probably won't suddenly drop both for two lines--especially two lines that are meant for inexperienced singers just learning the song.)

2

I feel like your analysis is far more interesting and insightful that anything the OP wrote :)

It certainly makes it a more interesting question.

(Successful call/response traditions follow certain pedagogical patterns, and one of them is that you don't throw a lot of nonsense at beginners; the first stuff you ask them to memorise needs to make sense.)

2

camp-cheers call-response

9:54 AM

Not song-lyrics?

I'd stick with song-lyrics.

:P

...I was never really in an environment with the camp song/cheer kind of dynamic, but I was in a grass-roots-propagated youth performance group that shared sets internationally, so I can attest first-hand to the care and pride taken in preserving a performance that's been given to you by another group; and I grew up adjacent to a number of oral and call/response traditions.

(We'd actually sometimes call a dance by the town it originated in.)

The Internet has made passing of camp songs from one group to another even more common and coherent, and caused less morphing along the way. Books are shared more widely via websites and forums.

@Standback just wondering, would you be interested in a Hebrew Language SE site?

@Mithrandir : Thanks! And sorry, but I'm afraid not.

Limited time (oh so limited), and it's just not a topic that holds my attention.

10:02 AM

:/ (Okay, the real reason I linked it was because if I get another follow I hit 1k and I'll be able to edit... :P)

:)

@BESW That's very interesting :)
When you say "the town it originated in," what do you mean? Where it was written? Where you first heard it?

The town whose group first choreographed the dance.

(In Israel I am fairly certain that professional, or even enthusiast, cheering just doesn't really exist.)

:P

My group wasn't a cheer group, we did cultural and message dances.

10:05 AM

I don't even know what those are.

Cultural dances are dances associated with a particular culture, like hula or stick dances.

Message dances convey ideas like the equality of men and women or the danger of drugs.

Some of the message dances were more literal/narrative, others more metaphorical.

(gotta go. But thanks for the interesting conversation :) )

ttfn

@Standback Adios

L'hitraot

10:29 AM

Hi

@Emrakul Re: literature.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/1057, I'm pretty sure the only official translation of Cien años de soledad to English, under the title One Hundred Years of Solitude, is by Gregory Rabassa

Hi!

I've got a question about reviewing close votes, was gonna Meta-post, but I figured it would be perceived as a stupid question: Why can't I review anymore? My rep was never above 124, but I could review anyway. Is that a beta thing?

*I could review til about a week ago, doesn't work anymore. I never had the 500rep needed to review in the first place

Why is that?

@RaisingAgent private beta has wildly different rep requirements for various privileges than public beta or graduated sites

Because during Private Beta anyone can review Close Votes, but now the reputation levels changed.

10:34 AM

85

Q: Reputation requirements compared

How do reputation requirements for various privileges compare on Stack Overflow vs a graduated Stack Exchange 2.0 site vs a site in public or private beta? Return to FAQ Index

discussion faq reputation privileges

Private beta has such a tiny population, they artificially reduce rep reqs for privileges so the site can still be curated effectively.

user image

I just saw, that we are in Public Beta now

Yep.

user image

I was just confused, because in private beta it also stated: 500rep needed

10:36 AM

...For what?

close votes

reopen, 350 for first post

...I don't think so...

maybe I saw it somewhere else and confused it

Maybe.

user image

So - Private levels, then public, then graduated.

whatever, thanks for enlightening me.

10:38 AM

Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.

Do the rep requirement rise again after the site 'graduates'?

Yes, see the last screenshot.

(in case you were wondering - the first screenshot is from Vegetarianism, second's from here, third's SFF.)

Oh, ok I see,

thanks alot

10:58 AM

1

Q: Could we use an [ergodic-literature] tag?

I was wondering whether it might be a good idea to have a tag for works of ergodic literature. Wikipedia uses the following definition: In ergodic literature, nontrivial effort is required to allow the reader to traverse the text. If ergodic literature is to make sense as a concept, there mus...

discussion tags

1

Q: Is it on topic to ask interpretation of specific poems

Well I have still not very well understood the site rules, and there is no guide. Since poetry is inherently vague (might even be desired), is it "non-constructive" or "not considered a good question" to ask interpretation of a specific poem? (I have roughly browsed recent questions.)

discussion scope

@Librarian Yes.

What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!

That's my favorite one...

11:20 AM

Wow, I just found out that I have a score of 90 in discussion. Probably thanks to Emrakul :P

11:40 AM

@Mithrandir it happen all the time, difference is I have no one to shout on me to sleep

1 hour later…

1:10 PM

Notice: Most likely from tonight until something like March 5th my activity will go down slightly, as I've got relatives from the States in. I'll still be around, just not for 14 hours a day.

1:27 PM

14h a day, rly? Others have hobbies... :P

...Yeah, I spend too much time here :P

fail, edit | delete ... the law near has it's flaws

I sleep at night (usually)... I eat when I'm hungry... I work in the summer...

just in the summer?

I've never really worked...

I just type chars into a computer using buttons

@RaisingAgent I'm 14...

1:38 PM

:) Oh, I see, you should really start becoming a videogame addict

dont you have school? Or are you from the australian outback and are being homeschooled?

Homeschool.

@RaisingAgent Nowhere near Australia, though :P

2:01 PM

Well, were else can you legally homeschool?

austria, america

not that many actually: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

How is homeschooling?

do you learn everything from SE?

2:19 PM

2

Q: Is there strong evidence that "room 5" in V for Vendetta was a conscious reference to Room 101?

In 1984, Room 101 is where people are taken to meet their worst fears. In V for Vendetta, room 5 is the room that V is kept in at Larkhill. Since it is labelled with the Roman numeral "V", it is suggested in the book that this is where he took his new name from. Given the large numbers of liter...

symbolism nineteen-eighty-four intertextuality v-for-vendetta alan-moore

0

Q: Why was 1984 titled 1984?

Was there any special meaning to the year he chose? I originally thought that he just selected a date in the future but now I am not so sure. Has George Orwell or his editor ever commented on the title?

george-orwell nineteen-eighty-four

2:46 PM

...EL&U? :)

Napoleon Wilson

→ 1 message moved to English Language & Usage

@RaisingAgent Israel.

@RaisingAgent Great!

@RaisingAgent ...Not everything.

Just mostly now.

@Bookworm Nobody knows.

3

Q: How should we use [references]?

As it stands now, references is being used for two different things, as is reflected by the usage guidance, I wrote. It is being used for: questions looking for specific references, and questions about references in books. This shows that this tag is not unambiguous. So, How should we use it ...

discussion tags

3

Q: Tag synonym request: [one-100-years-of-solitude] and [100-years-of-solitude]

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez has one of those long names which don't fit in tags and aren't easy to shorten. One way to make it short is writing "(one) hundred' as "100". We have two options: one-100-years-of-solitude, which is what I picked first, but is awkward to r...

support retag-request tag-synonyms

3:04 PM

@Librarian You're sloooowww.

@Riker I'm going to pull ahead soon. Get back on track :P

3:53 PM

0

Q: Are Nicholas's sentiments on playwrights those of his creator?

In chapter 48 of Nicholas Nickleby the latter expresses quite strong views on writers of plays adapted from books (a part of which below), considering he himself at one time wrote a play and the viciousness of the attack I wondered if Dickens was venting some of his own anger? 'Shot beyond hi...

charles-dickens nicholas-nickleby

user61230

4:22 PM

@muru But in theory, someone else could translate it, and the tag would still apply to their translation.

user61230

So technically the usage guidance isn't correct, even if it might be accurate right now. (And other people have translated at least sections of it - just not published.)

4:53 PM

@Emrakul cool, I was just thinking about asking a meta question about recommendations. Just for phun

Also, I want this for my birthday:

user image

user61230

Chat might be good for that, too. Having a Recommend-A-Book™ Room, maybe?

user61230

Alternatively asking here probably works fine

user61230

People here seem up for discussing and recommending books, go figure ;)

Actually, this is what I had in mind:

8

Q: Is there a SE site where sci-fi recommendation questions are on-topic?

I would like to read some hard sci-fi novels, the more plausible from a scientific point of view, the better. I've read good reviews about Larry Niven and David Brin's books. Of course questions asking for further recommendations are off-topic on Science Fiction & Fantasy but is there an SE site...

We might need a question where we'd send people who ask those kind of questions without offending them.

@Riker no reply from M&TV people about those bots?

@MissMonicaE - sure. Pop in, say 'does anyone know of a book like this that I would be interested in', hopefully get an answer, and chat will go on, discussing everything from squirrels to literature.se to toilet paper tubes. Don't worry about turning the chat into a swamp - if it becomes a problem, we'll probably create a specific chat room for book recommendations. — Mithrandir yesterday

Napoleon Wilson

5:09 PM

@Gallifreyan If there is anything additional that you desire beyond what I gave you in chat yesterday, please let me know. But I admit my web development abilities don't go far beyond what I gave you.

@Gallifreyan not found

@NapoleonWilson 0_o what did you give me? I missed it

Napoleon Wilson

@Gallifreyan Start reading here then:

in The Screening Room, 20 hours ago, by Napoleon Wilson

@Gallifreyan I can just give it to you. It's just a few lines of Google Apps Script.

@Riker ^^^ there you go

@NapoleonWilson Thanks a lot! Your contribution to this chat will not be forgotten!

@Mithrandir you can't see it? Is VK blocked where you live?

Napoleon Wilson

No problem. I'm sure there's other ways to do it. The SciFi people include it in their chat bot.

5:14 PM

@Gallifreyan no idea. I'm on my phone, maybe that's it?

Teclado Laser Totoro

O_o looks... Interesting.

@Mithrandir There's also an R2-D2 version

5:42 PM

0

Q: Is the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill based on real life events?

Jack and Jill went up the hill To fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown, And Jill came tumbling after. Up Jack got, and home did trot, As fast as he could caper, He went to bed to mend his head (or and bound his head) With vinegar and brown paper. Alt...

symbolism nursery-rhyme

6:15 PM

New Hot Network Question(s) detected:

6

Q: Why was 1984 set in 1984?

Was there any special meaning to the year he chose? I originally thought that he just selected a date in the future but now I am not so sure. Has George Orwell or his editor ever commented on the title?

george-orwell nineteen-eighty-four inspiration

Okay, I was just imitating Gideon :P

I hate asking for reasons for downvotes, but seriously I thought this question is well asked, has a good basis, and is shown to be squarely on-topic on Meta. Guess you can't make all the people happy all the time.... — Shokhet 50 secs ago

I upvoted.

I figured as much :) ...I had one upvote and 2 views when you commented and edited

And now another DV....can someone please follow the directions and "comment if you think the question can be improved"?

I'm heading for supper now. I'll start googling after. L'hitraot everyone!

user15026

@Shokhet Remember that people don't have to give reasoning for their votes. Although it is nice when a site is a new beta especially.

6:26 PM

To clarify: I'm not annoyed about the DVs. I just want to know what's wrong/what can be improved

@Ash Yes, I know. Thanks for explaining, though

@Mithrandir להתראות!

user15026

@Shokhet Sorry, that's force of habit from having to explain it a million times over on Gaming. :)

@Ash I completely understand. I've done the same on Judaism and other sites :)

@Emrakul That's so cool! My library has something similar, where you fill out a longer form with authors you like/didn't like/why, and what genre/length book you're looking for, and the librarians give you a list of 5-10 books that match

user15026

@Shokhet My local library does a similar thing! I've discovered some great books that way that I'd never have considered otherwise. This looks like a cool online way to find books in a similar vein :D

@Ash Yep. I like to consider myself well-read, but that website recommended so many authors whose names were unfamiliar....but that's the point, isn't it? Without those recs, it's pretty likely I'd never have found those authors on my own

People I know IRL (in my "reading bubble," I guess) mostly read and recommend the same few authors. It's exciting to find new ones :D

user15026

Yeah, I love finding new authors and new books. :D

user61230

6:48 PM

@Shokhet Now that's an incredible service. Especially because I imagine you can ask for specific types of recommendations, which can be hard to find on one's own.

user61230

Like, if I were looking for Italian literature because I haven't read much of it, I'd have a hard time with a service that relies on Italian authors I already know.

@Emrakul That's true.

Try checking your local library's website...for some odd reason, mine doesn't advertise this service -- I stumbled on it while aimlessly looking around their website.

7:26 PM

Wow, I've got 19 pending flags here. Everyone delete your comments! :P

Saw the last line, did a quick double-take ... oh, that Rand. — Rand al'Thor 2 mins ago

I knew that something would come up with Rand and that question. It was inevitable :P

It took me a while to figure out what @Randal'Thor meant by that, but I had a good laugh when I did :D

I find it amusing that the meta question has @Shokhet, @Standback, and me...

@Mithrandir ...I don't understand why that is amusing...?

@Mithrandir כולנו יהודים?

7:43 PM

Jan 30 at 17:43, by Standback

@Mithrandir, I'd love to play Jewish Geography (I live in Givat Shmuel ::waves::) but actually I want to ask if you come to Israeli fandom conventions :-)

@Shokhet כן

Too bad we didn't figure this out last year, when I was in yeshiva in ירושלים. Now I'm back in the States...

Tsk tsk. Well, come back :P

I'd love to :)

לשנה הבאה...

I hope so

7:47 PM

Now, I should go get ready for my Grandma's arrival...

But this site is too addictive o_o

I wonder what chance there is we saw each other without realizing it. I used to run along the רק"ל tracks from שמעון הצדיק to הר הרצל.

@Mithrandir I know. It's a problem, isn't it...

I've always lived in the north, so...

@Mithrandir Oh! I thought you said you lived in גבעת שאול; didn't realize that was @Standback

Oh :P

@Shokhet @Standback ^^^

7:51 PM

Gonna go now. Shalom!

See ya

8:46 PM

@Gallifreyan I was gone yesterday still gone today just checking in briefly

@Mithrandir really really busy irl sorry

9:00 PM

@Riker :/ Well, now I stole your position as second place...

oh well

I have a math competition this saturday

so I'm just really stressed out

first one I've done

This is one of the best special offers on @BigFinish #DoctorWho they've ever done. https://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/doctor-who---main-range-special-offers

Tweeted by NowWeAreAllTom on February 13, 2017 at 12:29 PM

@Riker good luck!

thx

fwiw it's the mathcounts one, state level

steelersquirrel

Do we have a definition on what a nursery rhyme is?

Do we just go off of what Wikipedia lists as a nursery rhyme?

I was going to ask a question about "Ring around the rosie" but, I never thought that was a nursery rhyme, but Wikipedia says that it is, so...I guess that I will just tag it as such when I ask it.

They need to make a movie about the origins of nursery rhymes and make it really twisted and scary. Maybe there's already a film that exists and I just haven't heard about it ;)

9:24 PM

Grimm messed with nursery rhymes and doggerel a few times before it went whole hog on the season arcs.

steelersquirrel

Oh, really? I have never seen that show. That actually sounds really cool.

I enjoy Grimm. They're all obviously having a lot of fun making the show.

steelersquirrel

Hmmmm...I wonder if it's on Netflix.

What's the difference between Grimm and that other show Once Upon a time, I believe that it's called?

So, Once Upon a Time starts with a village of fairy-tale characters who have been turned human and all forgot their origins, and the show is about them slowly remembering who they were and why this happened to them, and how they react to this remembering (dramatically!).

Grimm instead starts by saying that there's a secret community of human-like people living amongst us, who can turn into animal-like forms and have their own cultures and practices. A recurring premise is that myths, fairy tales, and other common lore are inspired by these people.

steelersquirrel

Ahhh...gotcha. So, would you recommend Grimm over Once Upon a time?

9:32 PM

Absolutely.

For similar flavours, I'd also recommend Haven.

steelersquirrel

It sounds really interesting. I'm going to check if it's on Netflix later. Thanks for the recommendation :)

Oh, and Warehouse 13 and The Librarians are good "revisiting myths in the modern day" shows too.

warehouse 13 is epic

steelersquirrel

Ohhhhh...cool! I love that sort of thing!

the librarians is good, not as good imo

steelersquirrel

9:35 PM

I love myths and urban legends and the origins of them...if there are any. It's totally interesting to me!

Both Warehouse 13 and The Librarians are predicated on the idea that magic --or something like it-- is real, and there's an ancient repository with a team of experts dedicated to bagging and tagging dangerous magic and keeping it safely out of circulation.

ye

steelersquirrel

Old phrases, too. Like the origins of certain phrases that we use. I love that stuff!

@Riker The Librarians isn't as good as the trilogy of films on which it's based, but it gets better toward the end.

yeah

9:36 PM

I ran a tabletop RPG inspired by all these shows, and Atomic Robo/Hellboy, a few years ago.

ok that seems like a good idea

do you still have the campaign syllabus/outline?

steelersquirrel

<wonders what a tabletop RPG is> ;)

@steelersquirrel Most folks have heard of Dungeons & Dragons.

tfw your internet mother is almost as ill-informed about cool stuff as rand is about computers

is it possible to disown your internet mother for this </sarc>

steelersquirrel

@BESW Yes. I have heard of Dungeons and Dragons. I just didn't know what RPG stands for ;)

9:41 PM

Role-Playing Game.

steelersquirrel

@Riker Hehehe! Yeah, I suck. I am well aware ;)

:P

steelersquirrel

Role-playing game! Gotcha!

@Riker We played using the Fate system, so there wasn't really a... planned story. Fate is more of a toolkit for establishing a scenario and playing to find out what happens.

ah ok

9:44 PM

Player characters were field agents for a secret international cabal whose motto is Using Weird stuff so Weird stuff doesn't use you!

steelersquirrel

Hey...I actually have some Dungeons and Dragons stuff from the 80's. It was with my husband's Star Wars stuff and WWF stuff from the 80's. So, I totally know what it is!

hahahaha

10/10

steelersquirrel

My husband was a late 70's and 80's kid. He had all of that stuff. I can't believe how much some of his Star Wars action figures were worth. I was shocked!

lol

my uncle has about 50k in rare star wars stuff

mostly because he had it as a kid and still does now

steelersquirrel

Cool! Exactly the same situation, here. My husband was an only child and he rarely opened his action figures and stuff.

9:48 PM

ah lol

the problem in my uncle's case is he doesn't live in teh US anymore and thus nobody wants stuff written in english

Unlike D&D, which uses a set of physical and mental statistics to base the character and then you choose from a list of pre-made options and sets of options, Fate uses pithy phrases to describe a character and what they're good at. Characters in Fate tend to look like this.

2

and he doesn't really want to sell it bad enough to try harder

@BESW 10/10

> Allow it, bruv.

steelersquirrel

Didn't kids go to public matches or battles or whatever they are called for Dungeons and Dragons?

@BESW was that from the campaign you were describing?

@steelersquirrel uh it depends not really though

I mean people meet in groups yeah

but rarely do people watch them play

so it's more likely you're thinking of magic: the gathering or another game

steelersquirrel

@Riker I remember my husband telling me that when he was a kid, he wished that he lived somewhere else because of playing D&D because he grew up in Alaska.

9:52 PM

lol

@Riker They do in large competitions.

@Riker Yeah; as part of the campaign, supernatural forces stopped being hidden and became very very public. Dame Miriam was Called in response to robotic yetis taking over London.

@Benjamin not dnd

magic yeah

but rarely dnd (I can't think of a reason you'd want to)

That's actually one of the more complex versions of Fate; this is a simpler version of the character sheet.

@Riker Yeah, some people do, I agree though there isn't a reason to.

9:54 PM

wait really? I've never heard of that

@steelersquirrel D&D sorta requires at least three people who can commit to regular games. Most RPGs do. So it can be hard to play in places without an existing game community.

this is why you live downtown next to a bunch of colleges

A lot of places have regular "walk-in" games at their friendly local gaming stores, and nerd conventions usually sponsor "one-shot" games for their attendees.

@Riker D&D Championship Series

huh cool

9:56 PM

I haven't played D&D in several years; it's the game I started with, but eventually I realised it's not designed for the sort of stories I like to tell.

2

Q: Looking for a poem about the (fictionalized) writing of The Canterbury Tales Prologue

A friend of mine used to quote a poem that told the fictionalized story of Chaucer writing the first lines of the Prologue of The Canterbury Tales: "Whan that Aprill with his ... ". When he gets to the word for "showers" he paused and had to choose between the French version of the word and "shou...

poetry story-identification geoffrey-chaucer the-canterbury-tales

steelersquirrel

Okay. Back to the grindstone. See you guys :)

These days Fate is our go-to system, but we also play a lot of one- or two-session games in a number of different systems depending on our mood and goals that evening.

@steelersquirrel see ya

@BESW huh cool

ttfn

D&D can cost upwards of $100 and require reading 300 to 900 pages before you start playing. Most of the systems we use are small and free.

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