The Reading Room

Hamlet

02:10

@Hamlet Since you keep talking about that article in relation to this question, perhaps you could make a self-answer out of it? — Rand al'Thor yesterday

@Randal'Thor when I ask questions on this site, about 50% of the time I already know the answer. I usually ask questions to (1) expand the scope and diversity of the site, (2) to provide challenges for members of the community, and (3) to provide examples of the types of questions you can ask of literature.

That HP question is certainly within the ability of anyone on this site to answer, particularly because I've provided the relevant link. And writing an answer to that question isn't something that I'm particularly interested in doing. So I'm going to leave the question as an opportunity for someone else to come along and get some practice writing good answers.

Bookworm

0

Q: Does the "Little Free Library" program actually provide access to books to low income communities?

Little Free Library is an organization that builds and distributes miniature libraries that can hold, I would guess about twenty books each. Here's a picture of one from Wikimedia Commons: The Little Free Library website claims that their program, by providing a easy, low cost way to establish...

library-and-information-science

Hamlet

I don't particularly like writing answers; I do too much writing already. When I do write answers, it's usually about topics like close reading, where (1) no one else is going to write that answer, and/or (2) when I write an answer I actually learn something new -- in the case of close reading I got some practice communicating a complex idea

TBH, there aren't that many times when I ask a question and don't already have an idea of what the answer is, or an idea of how to do research to find an answer.

@Bookworm hmmm, I wonder if we should have a book-desert tag, or an access tag. @BESW

BESW

02:26

accessibility, distribution

book desert is probably too jargony for anyone to actually find when tagging their question.

Hamlet

@BESW hmmm, accessibility sounds like it's for questions about things like screen readers.

@BESW distribution sounds vague, like it could be about how books are distributed from publishers to book stores.

Maybe I'm just being snobby, but I like book-deserts.

BESW

It's a cute term, go ahead and add it to your question; you're the asker, after all.

I'm just skeptical it'll be the term which gains traction.

Hamlet

The problem that I have with book-deserts is it refers to the idea that access to books is limited by geography. Which is certainly true some of the time, but it's not the only thing limiting access.

BESW

Aye.

Paul A. Clayton

I am considering doing a poetry reading for April 2017 with "pets" as the topic. I intended to use E.B.B.'s "To Flush, My Dog", but my googling skills have not led me to many public domain poems by significant poets. Since this is a kind of recommendation question, it would presumably not fit the site, so I am posting on chat. (I am only looking for about 30 minutes of material, but it is nice to have enough to be selective.)

Hamlet

02:34

@PaulA.Clayton you'll have to go back in time to do a reading in April 2017

@BESW does access work? Or is there a term used in the lit community that I'm unaware of?

Paul A. Clayton

@Hamlet Sorry, 2018! (I did "Love Sonnets" in 2017!)

BESW

@PaulA.Clayton "I started Early – Took my Dog," Emily Dickinson.

(It's also a great example of how her image as a depressing poet is in part the result of cherry-picking the bits that aren't, eg, about taking her dog to the beach.)

"I Am My Master's Dragon," Jack Prelutsky.

Hamlet

@PaulA.Clayton Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog Which I Gave to His Royal Highness (only superficially about pets, but still a fun poem)

Paul A. Clayton

@BESW That does not seem to be that much about her pet, more about the sea.

BESW

(That one's probably not public domain.)

"Nursery Rhymes for the Tender-Hearted," Christopher Morley. Arguably not a pet, but whatever.

Hamlet

02:39

@PaulA.Clayton here's a nice long list: Poems about Animals and Pets

Paul A. Clayton

@Hamlet I had not thought of that Pope piece. It seems worth considering. (I am fond of Essay on Man and Essay on Criticism, though I did not like Dunciad or Rape of the Lock.)

BESW

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats?

Hamlet

Elizabeth Bishop has a bunch of poems about animals, such as The Armadillo. No idea if it's in the public domain.

Yeats' Leda and the Swan might work

Paul A. Clayton

@Hamlet That might have been something I found with googling, but I kind of wanted to avoid "merely animal" poems. However, I might have to accept that topic expansion in order to get a decent choice from which select and order into a reasonably fun and coherent whole.

BESW

Epitaph to a Dog

"Epitaph to a Dog" (also sometimes referred to as "Inscription on the Monument to a Newfoundland Dog") is a poem by the British poet Lord Byron. It was written in 1808 in honour of his Newfoundland dog, Boatswain, who had just died of rabies. When Boatswain contracted the disease, Byron reportedly nursed him without any fear of becoming bitten and infected. The poem is inscribed on Boatswain's tomb, which is larger than Byron's, at Newstead Abbey, Byron's estate. The sections above the poem form a memorial eulogy to Boatswain, and introduce the poem. They are often assumed to form part of the poem...

Hamlet

02:43

@PaulA.Clayton well, the easy part is finding poems, the hard part is, as you said, ordering them and putting them together coherently.

Paul A. Clayton

@BESW T.S. Eliot looks promising.

Thanks for the feedback, y'all!

BESW

Archy and Mehitabel probably have something you can use.

Hamlet

@PaulA.Clayton oh, Thomas Hardy's "The Oxen". It's not just about animals, it also talks about human-animal relationships, which I'm guessing is more what you're looking for. Although I wouldn't say that's the main focus of the poem.

BESW

[rummages]

Hamlet

which I should have known about because I asked a question about it.

BESW

02:46

"The Song of Mehitabel," Don Marquis.

James Thurber must've written some poems about his dogs.

Hamlet

02:58

@BESW access or book-access?

BESW

[shrug] I was just spitballing, it's not an area of expertise.

Absent jargon, seems like book-access would probably be most intuitive to use.

Hamlet

went with book-access

BESW

My dad takes pictures of the dogs at the houses he works on and posts them on his business' Facebook page as employ… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/892525012657295360

Tweeted by _illdill_ on August 1, 2017 at 11:18 PM

Hamlet

03:16

@Shokhet if we get some good book-access questions and answers, then you could participate in #ProjectLITChat

BESW

05:53

Japanese sculptor Sayaka Ganz creates sculptures from reclaimed plastic and scrap metal #womensart https://t.co/8HLmcPG8iC

Tweeted by womensart1 on August 2, 2017 at 5:51 AM

BESW

07:46

Libraries aren't just about books. They are almost the only public space we have left which don't like our wallets more than us.

Tweeted by matthaig1 on August 2, 2017 at 5:43 AM

Bookworm

09:44

0

Q: The Gift of the Magi by O.Henry - some clarification requested

Clarify the meaning of the following sentences/expressions given below from the above mentioned: 1) In paragraph - 1: '.....the silent IMPUTATION of the PARSIMONY....' 2) In paragraph - 3: 'It did NOT exactly BEGGAR DESCRIPTION, but it certainly had THAT WORD ON THE LOOKOUT FOR THE MENDICANCY S...

o-henry

Gallifreyan

10:09

@Shokhet From the evaluations I've seen on the Internet, "24 Hours" was the most horrifying story of that time's DC's horror stories. Or so they say.

Someone should pin a message about Sophie's World, by the way.

Shokhet

13:54

@Gallifreyan I can definitely believe that.

Asimov used to tell an anecdote about attending a lecture where someone was analyzing one of his stories. Asimov told the lecturer that he was wrong about the author's intent, the lecturer asked how he knew this, Asimov answered that it was because he was the author, and the lecturer said this didn't matter. I wonder if the incident prompted this story. — Barmar May 20 at 0:11

@Shokhet To expand on this, @Hamlet, it's also that they're sacred texts. One of the other things that I liked about this teacher was that he was able to really analyze the texts while being properly respectful of them. (He's written a lot on Judaic writings, and is also an alumnus of Philly and UPenn, among other places). The other part

is that there's a lot of background information that most users here simply don't have. For example, in the last lecture that I attended, he was discussing Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Would anyone here (barring, perhaps, @Mithrandir) think to look at Avos to find the defining character traits of a Tanna?

Mithrandir

probably not

...or was that a rhetorical question?

Shokhet

Probably rhetorical :)

...but you would look there, right? "הוא היה אומר" = "would always say," right?

Mithrandir

essentially, yeah, I think so

Shokhet

Good :)

Mithrandir

also, woo for the 9 days being over

Shokhet

14:07

Yep :)

Although I have a couple of hours left till חצות :p

Mithrandir

14:50

> Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!

Hamlet

@Shokhet Well, I can understand not trusting this site to do a good job answering them. I can tell you from experience that there's a good chance people will write answers without knowing what they're talking about.

Shokhet

Huh. Anyway, it was a tweet that used to say ""A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life" - Henry Ward Beecher."

Mithrandir

like

"A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life." ~ Henry Ward Beecher.

Tweeted by LibraryDixonIL on February 3, 2017 at 12:14 AM

(different library)

Shokhet

@Hamlet On a site that still says "the Canaanites who were Hebrew" :/

@Mithrandir I think they were trying to retweet another library, but I'm not sure why they deleted the tweet.

I think this one

Hamlet

@Shokhet you really should downvote

6

Q: Should we step up our voting culture?

I've noticed more than a few questionable answers lately, most have received the typical "welcome to the site, but..." sort of comments, but it doesn't look like these comments are accompanied by votes. Which is admittedly concerning. Should we step up our downvote game? Like comments are nice ...

discussion down-votes voting

Mithrandir

14:56

Jul 10 at 15:26, by Mithrandir

Just want to remind people that voting - both up and down - is good for the site, and helps ensure our quality remains high.

;)

Hamlet

@Shokhet Of course, there are plenty of equally stupid things on this site that no one calls out because they don't have the relevant knowledge.

Shokhet

@Hamlet Haven't voted on that one yet, actually. (Which is bad, I know, because it's my question.) I wanted to go through the links (but I think some may have been blocked from the school's network filter, which often does funny things).

Does anyone know if succubus.net has good info? Some of the links in that answer go there.

That was one of the blocked sites; appears to be some kind of demon wiki. (That is, a wiki about demons. I can't say, without further research, whether that wiki is possessed or not.)

Hamlet

@Shokhet it appears to be a website about a comic book character, so I very much doubt it.

Looking at the links that answer posts, the links are essentially content scraped off of wikipedia.

Shokhet

> The SuccuWiki was created to be the home for all information on Succubi and Incubi. Categories include television, books, electronic media as well as toys and collectibles that are succubus or incubus related. Whether in modern or ancient form, whether a myth, story or other tale, it can be found here.
SuccuWiki attempts to be a high-quality source of Succubus and Incubus materials, from G-rated to X-rated, we cover them all.

SuccuWiki is, as the name implies, a Wiki that is designed to expand the knowledge about the Succubi in all their forms. It would be appreciated if the focus of it …

Hamlet

So no, it's not at all reputable or a good source.

succubus.net is not a reputable source. Wikis are only as good as the sources they cite. Don't link to Wikis, link to their sources. And the content of succubus.net appears to be mostly scraped from wikipedia. — Hamlet ♦ 6 secs ago

As far as I am concerned, if more than half of an answer is wrong, it's fair to downvote.

I don't tend to downvote for little things, like an answer got this small detail wrong. But little details are almost always a sign that you'll find something bigger that's wrong with the answer.

Shokhet

15:11

@Hamlet Makes sense.

Hamlet

Of course, sometimes an answer will consist of a bunch of easy facts at the beginning, and then a paragraph that tries to jump from those easy facts into an actual answer. So if something's wrong with that paragraph, then the entire answer is worthless, because the only thing remaining is just some easy stuff at the beginning meant to make the reader think that the writer knew what they were talking about.

Shokhet

Mhmm.

Bookworm

16:16

0

Q: The Gift of the Magi by O.Henry

What does the phrase '...the silent IMPUTATION of the PARSIMONY...' mean? It appears in the first paragraph of 'The Gift of the Magi' by O Henry.

o-henry

user247701

16:47

@Bookworm Hey i answered that

Apparently two users (me and Baskaran Soundarajan) entered Lit SE because of our doubts regarding The Gift of The Magi

Mithrandir

17:58

@user247701 did it come up in a course or something?

Hamlet

18:45

5

Q: Fixing comments in 5 minutes. Intrigued? Let's discuss

I made a quick change to Area 51 recently, and it had a profound effect on how people used that site. Let's discuss. Background: The basic building blocks of every SE site are the QUESTION and the ANSWER. They are clearly portrayed as such, so if anyone puts "something else" in that space, it'...

feature-request comments user-interface

Gallifreyan

19:50

Humble Best of Fantagraphics Bundle

Folks, it's second of August and we still haven't got a message announcing the challenge (cc @Mithrandir)

Mithrandir

i'm rereading it, but very busy

weill hopefully have some questions soon

DukeZhou

20:22

@Gallifreyan I was thinking of the Sandman when there is a gathering of the Gods. (I remember Delirium calling Thor a "pooey man", ostensibly because he had drunk himself senseless and soiled himself, Trainspotting-style, but can't remember the title of that arc)

BESW

20:46

Oh honey. We just call those "X-Men storylines". https://t.co/xUgyskUdsf

Tweeted by Wheeler on August 2, 2017 at 2:35 PM in reply to Wheeler

Gallifreyan

@DukeZhou that would be the third (most likely) chapter of Season of Mists, though I'm quite sure Delirium wasn't involved. Bast had a run-in with Thor, and he was indeed quite drunk.

BESW

20:59

"What You Missed that day you were absent from Fourth Grade" by Brad Aaron Modlin https://t.co/luX2EowPAZ

Tweeted by bairdjulia on August 1, 2017 at 12:26 PM

user15026

@BESW Oh, I really really like that.

BESW

Creator credit and rights to DC/Marvel characters gets discussed a lot, but not much about how they all should be public domain by now.

Tweeted by MattBors on August 2, 2017 at 5:14 PM in reply to MattBors

BESW

21:25

Do you a) like books? b) want to learn about history, sex and genetics? c) have 99p and a Kindle? #Genealogy https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01D8ZZWHO?ref=dbs_P_W_p2e_popup_T1

Tweeted by AdamRutherford on August 2, 2017 at 8:20 AM

Bookworm

22:00

0

Q: What happens at the end of The Scar by China Mieville?

Specifically I'm trying to reconstruct in words what goes on with/in the Scar itself, as in between Hedrigall's departure and then his return on the airship. It's something to do with the whole possibility trope (like with Doul's sword), but I'm not quite sure I understand what actually goes down...

unreliable-narrator

Bookworm

22:51

0

Q: Listing the books in the archives of the Temple of Ganesh

Digger is a webcomic about a wombat. On the comic published on April 12th, 2007, we're shown the archives of the Temple of Ganesh. You can view the comic online. Looking at the archives, several of the books in the archives have visible titles. Is there a list of all the books whose titles are v...

comics ursula-vernon digger

Hamlet

@Bookworm @BESW @Ash :)

user15026

@Bookworm This makes me want to go back and look! :)

BESW

[grabs Omnibus off shelf, tries to sync publication dates with page numbers]

...Alas, no footnotes.

Hamlet

@BESW it's chapter two, if that means anything.

@BESW hoping that someone would go through and make a list of the visible titles.

BESW

Relephant LJ post.

I know it's got one of her own earlier novels.

Hamlet

23:01

@BESW originally asked about the significance, but I removed that part of the question.

BESW

@Hamlet I might do that.

Hamlet

@BESW oh, and you got an Inheritance Trilogy answer.

BESW

Yup. Upvoted.

BESW

23:20

0

A: Listing the books in the archives of the Temple of Ganesh

I didn't know of any existing list, so I made my own. (?) means it's my best read but I think I'm probably wrong. Leviticu2 (?) Rats I Have Known Black Dogs King in Yellow Chickens IV Squids Alice in Wonder Land Chickens of the World II Shmoops (?) I Am Mouse Sandman Rly...

Transcript for