Books.

I often get a book based on cover art. That’s not all of course, but if the art attracts me immediately, there’s a good chance it will go home with me. I’ve often found that writers who really care about the cover art portraying the essence of their art tend to be good ones. I haven’t read anything else by Jeff Vandermeer. After the cover art, I was intrigued by the premise. I haven’t gotten to this one yet, still on The Emperor of All Maladies.

“Once upon a time there was a piece of biotech that grew and grew until it had its own apartment”: an odd, atmospheric, and decidedly dark fable for our time.

[…]

Superb: a protagonist and a tale sure to please fans of smart, literate fantasy and science fiction.

You can read the full Kirkus Review here.

Oh gods, I Got Rats!

Image: res.cloudinary.com

I love taking the silly quizzes at Medievalists, and I’ve missed a bunch. Naturally, I went for What Medieval Torture Method Would You Use on Your Enemies? first. I truly am evil, I got rats:

Rats

You are a creative thinker, and your enemies would be wise not to underestimate your imagination. Your preferred torture method is to restrain your victim on a flat, horizontal surface, then use inventive ways to trap rats so that their only means of escape is through the victim’s body. Not a pretty picture.

Well, I am certainly well armed with rats. :D I wouldn’t be able to torture them though.

Colour In The Middle Ages.

The month of May from Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry – three young women are dressed in green.

The month of May from Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry – three young women are dressed in green.

Medievalists has a fun article up about colour. Me, I’m all about the red first. Black second. I was rather delighted to find out I’d be an evil knight. :D Some interestin’ bits:

Medieval scholars inherited the idea from ancient times that there were seven colors: white, yellow, red, green, blue, purple and black. Green was the middle color, which meant that it sat balanced between the extremes of white and black. It was also considered a soothing color, so much so that scribes often kept emeralds and other green objects beside them to look at when they needed to rest their eyes, while the poet Baudri de Bourgueil suggested writing on green tablets instead of white or black ones.

I wouldn’t mind keeping a few emeralds around…

Arthurian romances, one of the most popular forms of literature in the High Middle Ages, often made symbolic use of color, especially in the depiction of knights. Pastoureau writes:

The color code was recurrent and meaningful. A black knight was almost a character of primary importance (Tristan, Lancelot, Gawain) who wanted to hide his identity; he was generally motivated by good intentions and prepared to demonstrate his valor, especially by jousting or tournament. A red knight, on the other hand, was often hostile to the hero; this was a perfidious or evil knight, sometimes the devil’s envoy or a mysterious being from the Other World. Less prominent, a white knight was generally viewed as good; this was an older figure, a friend of protector or the hero, to who he gave wise council. Conversely, a green knight was a young knight, recently dubbed, whose audacious or insolent behavior was going to cause great disorder; he could be good or bad. Finally, yellow or gold knights were rare and blue knights nonexistent.

There’s also the mystery of why the colour blue took so very long to show up, and much more.

Michel Pastoureau has written extensively about symbolism and colors in the Middle Ages. His series A History of a Color, has four books that have been translated into English – Black, Blue, Green and Red.

I’ve already tracked these down at B&N and put my order in! :D Not only a lovely little history, but a nice read, and fun resource for artists. You can read everything at Medievalists.net.

Tatsuya Tanaka: Miniature Calendar.

© Tatsuya Tanaka.

Everyone must have had thoughts like these before:
Broccoli and parsley may sometimes look like a forest of trees, and tree leaves floating on the surface of water may sometimes look like little boats. Everyday occurrences seen from a miniature
perspective can bring us lots of fun thoughts.
I wanted to take this way of thinking and express it through photographs, so I started to put together a “MINIATURE CALENDAR.” These photographs primarily depict diorama-style figures surrounded by
daily necessities.
Just like a standard daily calendar, the photos are updated daily on my website and SNS page, earning it the name of “MINIATURE CALENDAR.”

It would be great if you could use it to add a little enjoyment to your everyday life.

Add a little enjoyment to your world, by visiting Tatsuya Tanaka’s worlds, they are wonderful! You can see the current month and all the archives at Miniature Calendar.

Luna Day Mood.

Jonathan Davis – What It Is.

Pretty soon you have to deal
With the truth behind the way you feel
And I’d rather never know

I would do anything anything
Not to bring who I am to meet me
This useless suffering
Ugly part of me is screwing me
As it feeds me

But it is what it is
You don’t know how to live with what it is
But it is what it is
It may seem impossible
But I will embrace who I really am
If it’s a son of a bitch or a terrified kid
Then that’s what it is

Pretty soon you’ll have to face
You’re a virus called the human race
And I’ll never never know

I have done everything everything
Not to feel what it is I’m feeling
This basement devil is kicking the ass
Of my angel on the ceiling

But it is what it is
You don’t know how to live with what it is
But it is what it is
It may seem impossible
But I will embrace who I really am
If it’s a son of a bitch or a terrified kid
Then that’s what it is

Don’t push me, don’t kill me
What it is cause it is what it is
Don’t play games, don’t mess with
What it is cause it is what it is
Don’t ask me, don’t tell me
What it is cause it is what it is
Don’t push me, don’t kill me
What it is cause it is what it is
Don’t run from where you come from
Cause it is what it is
And I
And I

But it is what it is
You don’t know how to live with what it is
But it is what it is
It may seem impossible
But I will embrace who I really am
If it’s a son of a bitch or a terrified kid
Then that’s what it is

Sunday Facepalm.

The Owl of Minerva perched on a book was an emblem used by the Bavarian Illuminati in their "Minerval" degree.

The Owl of Minerva perched on a book was an emblem used by the Bavarian Illuminati in their “Minerval” degree.

Yet another lunatic I had not heard of until today, one Paul Begley, a right wing pastor. He’s the one who made up the story about Melania Trump insisting on having the white house exorcised. That’s a damn silly story deserving of its own post, but I’ll focus on the following one, which is all about the Illuminati plot to assassinate the Tiny Tyrant, led of course, by former President Obama. Be sure to gasp in shock. Interestingly enough, the wiki page on Illuminati opens thusly:

The Illuminati (plural of Latin illuminatus, “enlightened”) is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically, the name usually refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on 1 May 1776. The society’s goals were to oppose superstition, obscurantism, religious influence over public life, and abuses of state power. “The order of the day,” they wrote in their general statutes, “is to put an end to the machinations of the purveyors of injustice, to control them without dominating them.” The Illuminati—along with Freemasonry and other secret societies—were outlawed through edict, by the Bavarian ruler, Charles Theodore, with the encouragement of the Roman Catholic Church, in 1784, 1785, 1787, and 1790. In the several years following, the group was vilified by conservative and religious critics who claimed that they continued underground and were responsible for the French Revolution.

Gotta say, those goals all sound good to me, sign me up. Okay, on with the lunacy:

“We know right now, folks, that this was treasonous,” Begley said. “They’ve tried to hijack our nation, they tried to override our election and they are trying to destroy our Constitution. This is a cabal and by their own text messages, they even say they have secret societies and they say that these societies are meeting and these are top level people of several different U.S. government agencies working together as an Illuminati, working together as a cabal, to overthrow the United States of America.”

I’m just going to have to request citations here. Please, Mr. Begley, provide at least some of these nefarious texts, or possibly tweets. I will admit to a morbid curiosity over what type of text they would consider to be in the evil secret society category. I can’t help but think if people are openly texting about their secret societies and giving away major plot lines, it’s not much of a secret society. Basically, according to Mr. Begley, these shadowy secret societies are comprised of people who can’t keep a secret.

“I think that Bill Ayers is behind the scenes,” he continued. “I know that Barack ‘Barry’ Obama, I know that Barack Hussein Obama, I know that he is orchestrating it.

“I know, I know, I know!” No, you don’t know anything. You just make up stories out of whole cloth and act as if these are facts chiseled in stone. This is nothing more than wishful thinking, and it reveals a great deal about you, Mr. Begley. You’re all manner ugly inside.

Begley said that Obama and these secret societies are working to “impeach President Trump on lies,” but if that doesn’t work, they will seek to get Trump declared “deranged and incompetent and dangerous” and have him removed from office.

Oh, the Tiny Tyrant does lie, all the time. He doesn’t have a problem with being a liar, but he surely sucks at it. His attempts at lying are painfully transparent, as are all the lies parroted by his henchpeople. That said, the times he tells the truth are worse. As for deranged, incompetent, and dangerous, yes, yes, yes. That’s all blindingly obvious, and you all know it too, you just don’t care as long as you have a pliable puppet and can get what you want.

If those efforts fail, Begley said, then the final option will be assassination.

“We don’t have proof of assassination,” he said, “but I guarantee, if we could crawl into the bowels of these secret societies, there is a Plan C in place.”

Oh look, a teensy drop of truth. No, you don’t have proof, you don’t even have a reasonable cause for suspicion. Just ever divisive, poisonous bullshit full of hate and dark, twisted fantasies. Perhaps you should consider gaming, Mr. Begley, it might help you work out a few issues.

The whole thing, along with video, is at RWW.