Childhood’s End

Arthur C. Clarke wrote the book I reference in today’s title, but there are two other pieces of news I share today.

First, Ursula K. LeGuin has a short story out today, which is WICKEDLY beautiful.  She is such an elegant writer, even as she led me down her carefully-constructed and elegantly-landscaped path to the Bardo-Hell of Unemployment.

The second piece of news is that Anne McCaffery is dead, at 86.  She was one of my favorite authors as a young man, though some of her books were frowned on for men and seen more as young women’s literature.

We’re writing fairy tales about the Unemployment Fairies, and the woman who taught us that we could and should fly a-dragon-back, is dead.

Childhood’s end, indeed.

Video: The Medieval Manor

The illustration in my textbook was visually pretty, but so lacking in detail that I simply had to re-do it. I also made a static image to go along with it, which you can find here.

Update: I believe it’s important to show how places like manors changed over time, so there’s a pair of resources in my blog you may find helpful:

• The same manor in about 1200 AD (video@YouTube)
• The static image of the same manor in 1200 AD (image@Flickr)

I hope you find these useful.

Elsewhere

I kept a blog at anselm23.livejournal.com for years, and before that at anselm23.diaryland.com.  In the last few months, I’ve been keeping a blog at http://www.gravitysgrace.net/, which is is a .mac-enabled website.  But… my school is thinking about building a WordPress site, and it would be fun and more useful to have a WordPress blog so that I can teach students this fall about WordPress, and have them write their homework there.

What do you think? Should I port my gravitysgrace.net site to WordPress, or continue to maintain several separate blogs?

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Website Update & Breathing Fire

I’ve updated my website. There’s an experimental podcast on New Kingdom Egypt, and a podcast describing our Sunreturn night here in northeast Connecticut, and a short movie of me learning to breathe fire. The last one is particularly cool.

There’s also a gallery of photos of Clio attached to this page, which is not particularly well-designed, but could work well with a little more thought into how it should be set up.

I’ve got the ability through mac.com to use a domain name that I buy the rights to, but they don’t offer the service to buy the rights to a domain name. Anyone have thoughts on how to go about buying or registering a web domain name, what domain name I should buy, and whether or not mac.com is a good hosting service?

Enjoy!

From Bruce: Anarcho-Ninja clock restorers

this amazing story of unauthorized volunteer landmark restoration

Untergunther

a photo of the restoration crew

So… a bunch of anarcho-ninja architects and engineers secretly entered Le Panthéon, one of the old and respected churches of Paris. They secretly arranged to take control of the building in the midnight hours, and repair the famous clock in the clocktower, which had been abandoned since the early 1960s. Then they reported it to the authorities, who were dumbfounded that the anarcho-ninjas managed to assemble a workshop the size of Javabill’s in the clock tower itself without anyone noticing. This was achieved by putting up some dummy crates in a storage area, apparently.

Meanwhile, I have no space for my fencing gear to be stored, repaired, sorted or inventoried. I remind the careful reader that all of Holden Caufield’s drama and misery probably stemmed in part from having to be the equipment manager of Pencey Prep’s fencing team. No wonder he chose to get expelled from school; the job’s a misery, and no mistaking it. Far, far easier to get expelled and never have to do it again, than do it.

Eve of the Roman Tridies

Tonight is the Eve of Feralia, a festival in honor of the dead.

Thursday is the Charistia, a festival in honor of making peace with neighbors.

Friday is the Terminalia, the festival in honor of year’s end, and the rethinking of boundaries.

I invite you to do with this information as best suits your needs, your love and your will.

Website

I’ve published my podcast of last night’s improv here, at my new website:

http://web.mac.com/anselm234

Feel free to go listen.

Hymn for Holy Sophia

Hymn for Holy Sophia
December 16

Hail, holy Wisdom, earth and heaven’s queen,
who governs nature and guides human hands.
From your point of view, no path is extreme;
you are rock in a world of shifting sands.
When we know your advice, our path is clear.
Both council circle and broad lap of earth,
both tidal cycle and seasons’ changing
rest upon you: though the loom of the year
warps and wefts good fortune and loss of worth,
you abide yet in stillness unceasing.

Myth calls you veiled bride of the Nameless Name,
door-ward and guide of the Watercourse Way.
Youthful, and age-old, for ever the same —
our paths your passions are; our work, your play.
Calendar and space-time are in your care;
Hours and weeks with you are heaven-spent;
No word from you but what is true and right.
You build foundations for castles in air.
On your good repute is all credit leant;
to find you behind veils is our delight.

Holy Sophia, help us to prepare —
help us to plan to meet you face-to-face.
For though we would wish to meet one so fair,
only by work, preparation and grace
can anyone gain your full loyalty.
Teach us to be worthy of your favor;
grant us a stirrup-cup of your good will.
Who speaks your thought, we do call royalty.
love, wealth and fame are spices to savor;
of your sauce alone would we eat our fill.

I’ve posted five other hymns for the holidays, backdated to December 11 (Feast of Dionysius [Oct3], Castor and Pollux [Oct 25], Meditrinalia [Sept 30], Artemis of Music [Nov 22], and Artemis [Nov 10]). Now they won’t clog the front of your friends page. Enjoy.

Pachelbel in Hell

A musician haunted by Johann Pachelbel, greatest hits of the 1790s! Awesome link from and .

I’ve made more cookies tonight than I’ve made in about six years. I was never very much of a baker, but I’ve promised to make bread for a party on Thursday, and I didn’t really want to go into it cold. That’s a recipe for disaster. I also wanted to make cookies for my dormitory and my fencing team, so that they each had a bag with a half-dozen cookies or so on the last day of school, which is for all intents and purposes tomorrow (although they do make us attend school on Wednesday and Thursday, though we don’t get much accomplished).

I also finished writing another three of the odes for the pagan gods, and found three more that I had written but not typed. I’m debating whether or not to post them to LiveJournal; they’re all out of sequence and it might be confusing. I’m going to try to do three more tonight, or at least one more. There are seventeen pieces left in the whole sonnet sequence, and I’d like them all to be done by Christmas — New Year’s at the latest.