Eppu – Page 59 – Co-Geeking

Dining in Middle Earth: Flotsam and Jetsam

October 12, 2016October 10, 2016Eppu

“’I will make you some toast. The bread is three or four days old, I am afraid.’

“Aragorn and his companions sat themselves down at one end of a long table, and the hobbits disappeared through one of the inner doors. […]

“’And you need not turn up your nose at the provender, Master Gimli,’ said Merry. ‘This is not orc-stuff, but man-food, as Treebeard calls it. Will you have wine or beer? There’s a barrel inside there – very passable. And this is first-rate salted pork. Or I can cut you some rashers of bacon and broil them, if you like. I am sorry there is no green stuff: the deliveries have been rather interrupted in the last few days! I cannot offer you anything to follow but butter and honey for your bread. Are you content?’”

The Hobbits and their friends make a decent meal out of the remains of Saruman’s stocks after the destruction of Isengard. This month, we dine along with them on roasted ham with sliced apples, bread with honey, and a cup of wine.

A simple oval plate and a turned wooden tumbler are set on a worn wood surface (old table leaves). There’s a plain wooden knife for spreading butter and honey on toast, and an iron eating stick for spearing the ham and apple. On the side, one of our sushi sauce bowls masquerades as a honey dish. A stack of extra plates in one corner and two candlesticks with candle stubs in the other help with the mood.

Check out what’s it about in the introduction, or read the how-to!

Images by Eppu Jensen
Geeks eat, too! Second Breakfast is an occasional feature in which we talk about food with geeky connections and maybe make some of our own. Yum!

Quotes: Undercover Work as a Librarian

October 5, 2016September 27, 2016Eppu

“Sometimes undercover work as a Librarian involved posing as a rich socialite, and the Librarian in question got to stay at expensive hotels and country houses. All while wearing appropriately high fashion and dining off haute cuisine, probably on gold-edged plates. At other times, it involved spending months building an identity as a hard-working menial, sleeping in attics, wearing plain woollen dress, and eating the same food as the [boarding school] boys.”

– Genevieve Cogman: The Invisible Library

That’s a different kind of library gig all right!

Cogman, Genevieve. The Invisible Library. New York, NY: Roc, 2016, p 2.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Hidden Youth Illustrations Roundup

October 3, 2016September 27, 2016Eppu

The anthology Hidden Youth, with Erik’s story “How I Saved Athens from the Stone Monsters”, is expeced in November. We don’t know exactly when yet, but we know that the file has been sent to the printer. It’s very exciting—almost there!

I rounded up some of the artwork commissioned for the collection, but first here’s my headcanon picture for “Stone Monsters.”

In the beginning of “Stone Monsters,” there’s a scene where Mnestra, one of the protagonists who works as a flute girl, uses her veil to try and attract customers. I don’t think it was Erik’s intention, but the scene immediately brought to my mind this amazing, dynamic Greek statue we’d seen years ago at The Met:

The Met Bronze Veiled Masked Dancer

Bronze statuette of a veiled and masked female dancer, c. 3rd-2nd century BCE.

When thinking about “Stone Monsters,” this is the image that I connect with the story. Unfortunately the dancer’s veil is drawn so close that we can’t see her face. That’s where the Hidden Youth artists come to the rescue. I just happened to see this sneak peek by Paula Arwen Owen of her papercut illustration for “Stone Monsters” on Twitter:

That’s eggplant and egg, all right, with a herma in the background. 🙂 Love it!

Then I was curious and went looking for Hidden Youth art. Others have also posted glimpses of their work in progress. For example, Ellen Million:

(She’s shared a slightly bigger photo as well.)

Two girls by Veleries / Thio Wina Oktavia:

Kat Weaver’s dormitory(?) sketch:

A sneak peek by A. D’Amico:

A glimpse of Jay Bendt’s piece:

And, finally, Charis Loke’s almost finished illustration:

They all look so great—can’t wait to have the book in my hands!

Images: Bronze statuette by Eppu Jensen (Greece; c. 3rd-2nd century BCE; bronze). Papercutting by Paula Arwen Owens via Twitter. Attic room by Ellen Million via Instagram. Two girls by Thio Wina Oktavia via Twitter. Dormitory by Kat Weaver via Twitter. Street seller by A. D’Amico via Twitter. Leaning girl by Jay Bendt via Tumblr. Under clouds by Charis Loke via Twitter.

In Making Stuff occasional feature, we share fun arts and crafts done by us and our fellow geeks and nerds.

For Writers of Dull Titles of Best of Books Lists

September 28, 2016September 26, 2016Eppu

The other day I saw yet another recommended books article with a headline of the type:

[number] Books You Must Read
[number] Books Every [persontype] Should Read

Ah hah hah hah haa. No. So much no. A non-descriptive headline isn’t an attraction, it’s a turnoff.

Writing a header like that, enthusiastic as it’s probably supposed to be, just comes across as lazy, narrow-minded, lazy, self-centered, and lazy marketing-speak.

It makes me think that your interests, oh dear random person on the Internet, aren’t even in the same galaxy as mine. Worse off, it sounds like you don’t care enough about your job to throw in even one modifier, not one, to narrow down the audience for your list.

There are no books you get to flat-out tell me I must or should read. For one, you’re not the boss of me. You don’t get to dictate my choices. For another, you’re not the arbiter of universal taste. What you promote is not and cannot ever be a must of anything for the rest of humankind. Furthermore, you know nothing of me; literally, not a thing. You don’t know whether I’m interested in whatever it is you’re promoting, whether I hate it, whether I’m lukewarm, or whether it might be a PTSD trigger. Assuming your recommendations are a must for everyone else is dismissive of priorities, experiences, and circumstances that differ from yours. Lastly, your puny title tells me absolutely nothing about your list. There’s not even an indication of whether we’re talking about fiction or non-fiction. I won’t waste a click on a header that’s laughably generic. Congratulations, you’ve just wasted both your time and your employer’s dollars.

Instead, tell me why I might want to have a look at your list. For example, the headlines below have a significantly higher likelihood of getting a click, provided I’m remotely interested in the topic / genre / protagonist / etc.:

[number] Books to Read If You Like [topic]
Exploring [genre] Worlds: [number] Books for Newcomers
[number] Books with [type of protagonists]
Our Favorite [genre] Books in the Style of [popular title]
Love [author]? You Might Also Like These [number] Books on [topic]
New Books for [popular title] Fans to Check Out
[number] Books to Consider for [topic] Enthusiasts
Darker, Edgier [genre] Worlds
The [number] Most Inventive Books that Break [genre] Barriers
[number] Worlds to Delve into If You Like [author]

Much, much more informative, don’t you agree?

Image: detail of photograph by Mundo Resink via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0

Here there be opinions!

Generating Secondary World Maps with Pasta

September 27, 2016September 26, 2016Eppu

Remember Uncharted Atlas, the online tool to autogenerate fantasy world maps with? If that feels too convoluted or restrictive, there’s also a quick low-tech solution. Tumblr user ohemult describes how to make maps with pasta (and expletives):

“BETTER, BUT NOT FUCKING GOOD! WHATEVER, TRACE THE COASTLINE WITH YOUR PENCIL. BE SURE TO BE SLIGHTLY SQUIGGLY AND, OH, FUCK THOSE LITTLE ISLANDS YOU MADE THEY’RE NOT BIG ENOUGH TO BE WOBBLY ENOUGH SO YOU’RE BETTER OFF USING EITHER RICE (OR SIMILAR) OR JUST TRY TO MAKE SOME REALISTIC FUCKING ISLANDS (SPOILER: YOU WON’T)”

(I find that ohemult’s instructions work best if I imagine Samuel L. Jackson reading them as his Pulp Fiction character.)

Visit Tumblr for the full write-up. Found via Tor.com.

Image by ohemult via Tumblr

In Making Stuff occasional feature, we share fun arts and crafts done by us and our fellow geeks and nerds.

On First Contact Communication in Arrival

September 23, 2016May 28, 2017Eppu

The movie summer and early fall have been rather dry, as has the actual weather here. I’m eagerly awaiting November when Doctor Strange (six weeks to go!) and Arrival (seven weeks!) open a hopefully more thirst-quenching end of the year. And the more I hear about Arrival, the more intriguing it sounds.

Mark Liberman at Language Log was asked to provide a linguist’s perspective on first-encounter communication strategies. His post is both lengthy and enlightening.

Specifically, he answers the question “An alien is standing in front of you, apparently peaceably. What is the first thing you try, in an attempt to communicate with it?”

The meatiest bit is this:

“There’s no guarantee that their senses and their modes of action are going to be a good fit to ours. They might communicate via skin color changes like cuttlefish, except maybe theirs are only visible in the ultraviolet. Or maybe they can modulate and sense electric fields, like electric eels. They might use gestural and postural changes in a body that’s very different from ours, or rapid morse-code-like modulations of sound at a dozen different frequencies independently and simultaneously. Maybe pheremone-like chemical signals are a crucial part of the process.

“Whatever the modalities of communication, it’s quite likely that we won’t be able to imitate them without building some specialized apparatus. And it’s quite possible that it would be hard even to recognize the fact that they’re communicating with one another, before we even get to the point of trying to understand and imitate.

“More likely, the process would be:

(1) Persuade them not to kill us, and vice versa;
(2) Persuade (or coerce) them to let us observe their within-species interactions, or vice versa;
(3) Design and build systems for recording, analyzing, and synthesizing their communicative signals (or wait for them to do the same thing for ours);
(4) Use those systems to engage in a sort of “monolingual demonstration”, and hope that we can come to understand them and communicate with them to some extent.”

According to Liberman, Ted Chiang’s short story “Stories of Your Life” (that the movie is based on) also mentions “in a mild way” a few of these issues:

“[Protagonist, linguist Dr. Louise Banks] needs to use a ‘sound spectrograph’ to analyze the aliens’ utterances, which sound to her ears ‘vaguely like […] a wet dog shaking the water out of its fur’, and she needs recording and playback to communicate in the other direction, since they don’t recognize her attempts to imitate their speech.”

Visit Language Log for more.

On the basis of the Arrival trailers released so far it’s hard to say whether the movie will be focusing on linguistics specifically, or whether the intellectual mystery will be rounded up into a more generic academic exercise. It does look like the script at least attempts to stay with Chiang’s story. Like Liberman, I’m very interested to see how much of the linguistics makes it on screen.

Image: sign language : friend via Flickr (2008; colored pencil on charcoal paper; by R.A. Olea) CC BY 2.0

On, of, and about languages.

New Edition of Alice in Wonderland with Salvador Dalí

September 21, 2016May 20, 2018Eppu

In 2015, commemorating the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Princeton University Press reprinted a color edition with illustrations by Salvador Dalí.

Surreal, almost psychedelic, and rarely seen before the reprint, the original gouaches were first published in 1969.

The color use is amazing, and the surrealist style fits elements of the story. However, I can’t escape the feeling that had I seen these illustrations as a kid, they would’ve given me nightmares.

Found via Colossus and Brain Pickings.

Images: Down the Rabbit Hole and The Mock Turtle’s Story via William Bennett Gallery (1969; heliogravures of original gouaches; by Salvador Dalí)

Out There is an occasional feature highlighting intriguing art, spaces, places, phenomena, flora, and fauna.

Labyrinth Released 30 Years Ago

September 16, 2016November 16, 2025Eppu

Jareth: “You remind me of the babe.”

Goblin 1: “What babe?”

Jareth: “The babe with the power.”

Goblin 2: “What power?”

Jareth: “Power of voodoo.”

Goblin 3: “Who do?”

Jareth: “You do.”

Goblin 4: “Do what?”

Jareth: “Remind me of the babe.”

This year marked the 30th anniversary of the release of Labyrinth by director Jim Henson. This past weekend FantomEvents ran some special Labyrinth showings in theaters. We didn’t go due to schedule issues (=work, work, work) but instead watched it at home.

As a geeky kid of the 80s, I have very fond memories of the movie. It’s mostly because of its visuals, but I do like the fantastic lines—great for learning English with—and voice acting as well.

Sarah: “Did you say ‘Hello’?”

Worm: “No, I said ‘allo’, but that’s close enough.”

(The worm was one of my very first tastes of dialectal / regional English!)

If my memory serves, the puppetry effects in Labyrinth are mostly better than in The Dark Crystal, Jim Henson’s previous fantasy movie. (Note to self: Find out if I can rent / stream The Dark Crystal. Local library to the rescue!)

Some of the songs, too, have become long-time favorites, especially “As the World Falls Down” by David Bowie.

Ballroom Scene – Labyrinth – The Jim Henson Company

As a kid, I didn’t really understand how someone could like Bowie’s music, but that one song opened my eyes. (Ears?) I still love it, and the ballroom scene with its floating props.

Bonus find: Stephanie at Make and Tell shares her “the babe with the power” wall art printable.

Stephanie Make and Tell babewiththepower_printable_mockup2

What’s your favorite Labyrinth memory?

Images: Labyrinth DVD case by Eppu Jensen. The babe with the power printable by Stephanie at Make and Tell.

This post has been edited.

In the Seen on Screen occasional feature, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.

Dining in Middle Earth: The Courtesy of the Golden Hall

September 14, 2016September 14, 2016Eppu2 Comments

“At the King’s board sat Éomer and the four guests, and there also waiting upon the king was the lady Éowyn. They ate and drank swiftly.”

This month we visit the Golden Hall of Meduseld in Rohan. Our food reflects the northern roots of Tolkien’s Rohirrim, drawing on Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon traditions.

We start with a hearty rye porridge, followed by braised beef and roasted vegetables. For dessert, a rich saffron and cream pancake served with apple compote.

The table setting is built with multiple colors, layers, and lush textiles. The colors refer to the expansive grasslands of Rohan, and gold-colored or metallic-sheen details add opulence. The dishware turns showier as the meal progresses, moving from a plain white bowl to a plate with brown and green glazing, and ends with a pale teal handblown glass plate on a gold-rimmed white charger.

Check out what’s it about in the introduction, or read the how-to!

Images by Eppu Jensen

Geeks eat, too! Second Breakfast is an occasional feature in which we talk about food with geeky connections and maybe make some of our own. Yum!

Glimpse of Behind the Scenes Driving in Fury Road

September 13, 2016September 12, 2016Eppu

A short video compilation of raw footage from director George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road has surfaced:

Fury Road – Crash & Smash via ESPORTS TV

Included are shots of practice runs of some of the vehicle stunts. The skill of those production designers, explosion experts, cinematographers, stunt people, and drivers is staggering.

Found via io9 / Gizmodo.

Elsewhere in the Fury Road related Internet, there’s this music video by violinist, dancer, and artist Lindsey Stirling:

The Arena – Lindsey Stirling

It comes from her third full-length album, Brave Enough. I know Stirling from her Star Wars mashup video with Peter Hollens.

Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Hey, look! We found a thing on the internet! We thought it was cool, and wanted to share it with you.