...can be a pain in the butt. I wanted to check up on my basis for Jocelyn, who we might actually meet if I ever make it to the writing part of my day. In my notes from '07, I have listed Johnalyn, female, being the prettiest of all the angels.
All over the internet, all I can find is this SAME SENTENCE copied over and over on a dozen pages:
"According to the Book of Enoch, Johnalyn was known as the prettiest of God’s angels that did not betray Him. She became most well known for the inspiration of Eve. As God made Adam in his own image God made Eve in the image of Johnalyn."
It's almost always in a paragraph on Lust, part of a few pages worth of text that has been copied over and over again on different websites. Not only is this kind of non-credited plagiarism irritating and angering, but... where the $#^*(Q)# are people getting this from?? I just ran a search through my pdf of Enoch, and there is NO mention of a Johnalyn. The only mention of Eve is that she was led astray by Gâdreêl.
...when November is over, I will sit down and actually read all through The Book of Enoch (The Book of the Watchers, anyway - I'm not sure reading through the more mystical allegorical bits will do me much good).
It's just making me all kinds of crazy, that I cannot find a source for this information. Not that it should actually matter - my rational: if Johnalyn didn't fall, then obviously Jocelyn borrowed the name, to bolster her own reputation as beautiful. All works quite nicely actually.
Still.. I hauled out my copy of A Dictionary of Angels, to skim over the descriptions of my characters again. Not that they all wound up following the attributes granted them in Enoch and elsewhere - and I realize now that many of the names were pulled from lists of fallen angels, not the grigori.. buuut, things get muddled in time. There are only twenty grigori listed, and there were 200 or so more who fell along with them. Even among the twenty names, at least two of them might be different variations of the same name.
But my Luce is prideful, and Azal likes his eyeliner, so all is well. And maybe I'll find a way to work in Penemue - he taught mankind how to write, which I love, but I wasn't able to find a way to make his name pretty enough to use, back in '07. ;p
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Monday, November 29, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
Note - music
EEEEE!!! So, writing this morning, I have fiiiinally gotten Mephisto to wander over to the room with the hydraulis in it. (This has been making me crazy, because it's such an awesome-sounding instrument, that I had to use it, but couldn't yet.) I think there's one in a song or two among the 734820 I downloaded last week, but, wasn't sure, so went back to this video I posted a link to the other day, to get a refresher on the sound.
It's the Song of Seikilos!!! I didn't even know! The video was one of the earlier things I looked at that day, and it wasn't until later that I sat down and taught myself the song. (I now have it memorized, and it makes me very, very happy to be able to sing.)
...of course, now I have a *third* version to listen to, and so far each one has slightly different pronunciations in it. As I know no Greek whatsoever, I'm going to have to arbitrarily decide between them. hmm.
It's the Song of Seikilos!!! I didn't even know! The video was one of the earlier things I looked at that day, and it wasn't until later that I sat down and taught myself the song. (I now have it memorized, and it makes me very, very happy to be able to sing.)
...of course, now I have a *third* version to listen to, and so far each one has slightly different pronunciations in it. As I know no Greek whatsoever, I'm going to have to arbitrarily decide between them. hmm.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Note - Song of Seikilos
This is the song in the second half of that post - The Song of Seikilos. Oldest complete piece of music that exists. Wiki article, which is brief but has more links, aaand I can now sing along! I didn't actually listen to the version with lyrics (linked on wiki) until just now - but played the instrumental version a good dozen times or so, and I can hardly stop listening. Currently downloading what little ancient greek music I can find on the torrent sites. I now not only have a playlist on my zune of "1800s", but also "ancient".
Internet. <333 Who'd have guessed I could actually make such references in a NaNoNovel?? I am quoting ancient greek! Songs from millenia ago!
Internet. <333 Who'd have guessed I could actually make such references in a NaNoNovel?? I am quoting ancient greek! Songs from millenia ago!
Notes - Ancient Greek Music
Aaand a few hours later, I have decided that apparently my Phistos are going to have a Greek party. Very original, isn't it? But I now have a full page of tiny scrawl about ancient Greek instruments, and vague notes on the different tonalities.
Highlights of the day's internet digging:
Reconstructed hydraulis, video.
A site I have read in its entirety... and though I was here for the Greek, the Hurrian melody has really.. well, eaten my soul. Music in cuneiform!!! There is a midi file there, and then there is this guy, who has a lyre and plays not only that song, but the Delphic Hymns to Apollo (138bc! most of it intact!), and loads of other interesting things.
The Song of Seikilos is the oldest intact piece of music, and the lyrics translate like this:
While you live, shine
Don't suffer anything at all;
Life exists only a short while
And time demands its toll."
There are also these folks, who are working to make digital reproductions of instruments that no longer exist. This is fascinating to me. So far, they've managed the Greek epigonion, but they're working on a handful more - and I reallyreally wish some snippets were available of the others, but... I have some descriptions (thanks wiki), at least.
...all of this, will be more than enough for the probably single paragraph at most of describing the scene I should have written hours ago. whoops. At least I've learned that the aulos, in all its various forms, is not a pretty little flute-like thing. It's a reed instrument, and has that harsh edge to the tone that oboes and bagpipes and things do. Luckily there are loads of stringed things, and the syrinx (pan-pipes).
Highlights of the day's internet digging:
Reconstructed hydraulis, video.
A site I have read in its entirety... and though I was here for the Greek, the Hurrian melody has really.. well, eaten my soul. Music in cuneiform!!! There is a midi file there, and then there is this guy, who has a lyre and plays not only that song, but the Delphic Hymns to Apollo (138bc! most of it intact!), and loads of other interesting things.
The Song of Seikilos is the oldest intact piece of music, and the lyrics translate like this:
While you live, shine
Don't suffer anything at all;
Life exists only a short while
And time demands its toll."
There are also these folks, who are working to make digital reproductions of instruments that no longer exist. This is fascinating to me. So far, they've managed the Greek epigonion, but they're working on a handful more - and I reallyreally wish some snippets were available of the others, but... I have some descriptions (thanks wiki), at least.
...all of this, will be more than enough for the probably single paragraph at most of describing the scene I should have written hours ago. whoops. At least I've learned that the aulos, in all its various forms, is not a pretty little flute-like thing. It's a reed instrument, and has that harsh edge to the tone that oboes and bagpipes and things do. Luckily there are loads of stringed things, and the syrinx (pan-pipes).
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Note - language
Fifteen minutes of googling and some quick studying got me to the Japanese. I am really not sure it's correct - it should translate to "Girl will play the koto", in a polite form. Verb conjugation seems simple enough, that should be correct, but I'm not entirely sure how he would have referred to her, aaand the sentence structure is snagged from another sample sentence, and I'm not entirely certain how the articles work in it. But I think it's correct enough - I'll consult Tom's two semesters worth of Japanese class later. ;p
ed: From what Tom recalls, I was actually pretty close. If anything, I could probably have left out the noun, but, I'm not entirely certain on that. Still - I suspect Veri is too lazy to bother with every nuance of a language, the way Azal would.
ed: From what Tom recalls, I was actually pretty close. If anything, I could probably have left out the noun, but, I'm not entirely certain on that. Still - I suspect Veri is too lazy to bother with every nuance of a language, the way Azal would.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Music and translation notes
So, the song in French is possibly a little late - the site that posted it dated the recording between 1898 and 1900. But the opera it's from was 1888, so, plausible. And the words were just far, far too lovely to not use it!
I do not know French. Like at all. But GoogleTranslate gave me this, which provides a clear enough sense of the thing:
Jocelyn's Lullaby
Hidden in the asylum where God has led us
United by misfortune during the long nights
We rely both asleep in their sails
Where to pray against the trembling stars.
Oh! does not wakes
For a beautiful angel in your dream
Unrolling his long golden thread
Child, allowing it ends.
Sleep, sleep, the day just to him.
Blessed Virgin Mary, watch over him.
I swear to you all, I did NOT even make the connection between the title and my character, not until I wrote the song into the story and decided to mention the name of the song. Suddenly I realized I HAVE A CHARACTER NAMED JOCELYN AND OMFGWTFH SHE GAVE THE RECORDING TO MACKIE. It almost (almost) made me not want to use it anymore, but by then a) it was too late, b) I was too freaking attached to the song. Follow the link, and you can listen to it too. :) Quite a bit of static, of course - the recording is over a hundred years old, and on a thing made out of freaking wax, but.. honestly, that just makes it all the more amazing to me.
I did some writing this morning, a bit more in the afternoon, and then finished up just now. And I am in such a state of sheer bliss - I crossed the halfway point without even noticing it! And, more importantly... I felt like I really fell into the world of the story tonight. I was so caught up in Mephisto and David... and it was partly the music I had cranked on my headphones (Mackie playlist, natch), and partly the absinthe I was sipping (yay!), but...
Those moments, those are the reasons I've kept on doing this year after year. It's those moments, that artists live for, when another world just blossoms almost unbidden under your fingertips...
(I hadn't even thought of the implications when I picked out David's song: Link to sheet music, Googled for the missing verse. I just saw that it was pretty and a bit fantastic, I didn't even realize at first it was to be sung by a woman originally. And then he sang, and... and then everything got really, really beautiful. <333)
I do not know French. Like at all. But GoogleTranslate gave me this, which provides a clear enough sense of the thing:
Jocelyn's Lullaby
Hidden in the asylum where God has led us
United by misfortune during the long nights
We rely both asleep in their sails
Where to pray against the trembling stars.
Oh! does not wakes
For a beautiful angel in your dream
Unrolling his long golden thread
Child, allowing it ends.
Sleep, sleep, the day just to him.
Blessed Virgin Mary, watch over him.
I swear to you all, I did NOT even make the connection between the title and my character, not until I wrote the song into the story and decided to mention the name of the song. Suddenly I realized I HAVE A CHARACTER NAMED JOCELYN AND OMFGWTFH SHE GAVE THE RECORDING TO MACKIE. It almost (almost) made me not want to use it anymore, but by then a) it was too late, b) I was too freaking attached to the song. Follow the link, and you can listen to it too. :) Quite a bit of static, of course - the recording is over a hundred years old, and on a thing made out of freaking wax, but.. honestly, that just makes it all the more amazing to me.
I did some writing this morning, a bit more in the afternoon, and then finished up just now. And I am in such a state of sheer bliss - I crossed the halfway point without even noticing it! And, more importantly... I felt like I really fell into the world of the story tonight. I was so caught up in Mephisto and David... and it was partly the music I had cranked on my headphones (Mackie playlist, natch), and partly the absinthe I was sipping (yay!), but...
Those moments, those are the reasons I've kept on doing this year after year. It's those moments, that artists live for, when another world just blossoms almost unbidden under your fingertips...
(I hadn't even thought of the implications when I picked out David's song: Link to sheet music, Googled for the missing verse. I just saw that it was pretty and a bit fantastic, I didn't even realize at first it was to be sung by a woman originally. And then he sang, and... and then everything got really, really beautiful. <333)
History of Recorded Music
Aaaand I just spent nearly two hours pouring over phonograph history. I had a hunch records weren't around in the late 1800s (not even the giant breakable shellac ones). I remembered seeing cylinders put into a phonograph-like thing in "An American Tale". That was all.
Thanks to Wikipedia, I now have the entire early history of sound recording lodged in my brain:
The phonautograph - earliest sound recorder, but was NOT intended for playback. Just took down the waveforms, essentially. Two years ago someone finally figured out how to reproduce the sound, and thanks to FirstSounds.org, I got to listen to a scientist singing in 1860s - a scrap of music that went completely unheard, and unlistenable, for over 150 years. Really, really haunting.
But obviously, that is not what my characters would have had on hand. Cylinders (which could both record and play back) showed up around the 1870s, so that's plausible. I spent awhile over on Tinfoil.com, which has A FREAKING TON of recordings from old cylinders - there are select recordings from the 1890s onward posted, and you can purchase cds (and in my case, listen to samples) of things from cylinders going back to the 1880s. Peeeerfect.
Only, Edison used tinfoil-covered cylinders first. A couple years later, wax ones came along, which had much better sound and were easier to handle. So, I need to decide which I'm going with - this feels like a HUGE decision to make, as it basically decides whether my story takes place after 1886 (wax cylinders patented).
...this, of course, is not something that aaanyone would nitpick me on. I don't think anachronisms within a couple of years count for much, when the setting is over a hundred years ago.
Still, I'm oddly fascinated by this stuff. I went through about half of Rene Rondeau's amazing site filled with pictures and descriptions of the early machines. (A talking doll from 1890?! With a tiny little wax cylinder player in her chest! I am all kinds of delightfully terrified by this thing.) While most of the recordings on Tinfoil.com are very static (wax cylinders wore down after about a dozen plays, plus mold and age do not play nicely with them), there's a video embedded on Rene Rondeau's site, that shows a recent demonstration of a tinfoil cylinder. Sound quality? Is *really*, really impressive, especially for music. So impressive, that I think Mackie is going to get one. Well, maybe a wax one - I suspect Mackie is going to be the very first audiophile. XD lmfao.
...and, there, wiki's article on phonograph cylinders: commercial ones would play about 2 minutes of music. That's what I was looking for. (Descriptions of gorgeous tinfoil machines like this one - which I am insanely in love with - mention things like "could only record 50-60 words". Not quite enough to work with.) Tough to find pictures of machines from before 1900, and apparently the material the earliest wax cylinders were made of...uh, didn't survive well. Many fogged during the summer due to high heat, and inconsistent ingredient formulations were an issue. (The tinfoil ones can't be played back anymore at all. That's so sad.)
The cardboard tubes the cylinders were packaged in? Just gave company name, artist info was hand-written on them. No marking on the cylinders themselves at all - though an announcer often gave that info at the start of the recording. To hold one properly, you should stick your fingers inside the cylinder at either end, not touching the wax part. (This, on further thought, makes an awful lot of sense. You could buy attachments to shave flat - and thus erase - recorded cylinders.) Such odd little details, things you'd never think of questioning...
Also - I suspect that, come editing time (and/or desperate-for-wordcount-time), I am going to make some serious, serious use of this stunning collection of old sheet music. What a truly amazing resource, I cannot WAIT to dive into it!
...but I should probably remedy my word count first. Worked early yesterday, so only had time to put in about 700 words in the morning, and when I got home, there was a football game to watch with Tom, and then we decided to have a nice lil evening. (Didn't post on here yesterday - backdated it when posted today.) Poor lil word count.
One last link: piano recording, no date, though I'd guess late 1880s-early 1890s, since it's a white cylinder of a metal soap, which was tried shortly after wax ones came on the market.
Thanks to Wikipedia, I now have the entire early history of sound recording lodged in my brain:
The phonautograph - earliest sound recorder, but was NOT intended for playback. Just took down the waveforms, essentially. Two years ago someone finally figured out how to reproduce the sound, and thanks to FirstSounds.org, I got to listen to a scientist singing in 1860s - a scrap of music that went completely unheard, and unlistenable, for over 150 years. Really, really haunting.
But obviously, that is not what my characters would have had on hand. Cylinders (which could both record and play back) showed up around the 1870s, so that's plausible. I spent awhile over on Tinfoil.com, which has A FREAKING TON of recordings from old cylinders - there are select recordings from the 1890s onward posted, and you can purchase cds (and in my case, listen to samples) of things from cylinders going back to the 1880s. Peeeerfect.
Only, Edison used tinfoil-covered cylinders first. A couple years later, wax ones came along, which had much better sound and were easier to handle. So, I need to decide which I'm going with - this feels like a HUGE decision to make, as it basically decides whether my story takes place after 1886 (wax cylinders patented).
...this, of course, is not something that aaanyone would nitpick me on. I don't think anachronisms within a couple of years count for much, when the setting is over a hundred years ago.
Still, I'm oddly fascinated by this stuff. I went through about half of Rene Rondeau's amazing site filled with pictures and descriptions of the early machines. (A talking doll from 1890?! With a tiny little wax cylinder player in her chest! I am all kinds of delightfully terrified by this thing.) While most of the recordings on Tinfoil.com are very static (wax cylinders wore down after about a dozen plays, plus mold and age do not play nicely with them), there's a video embedded on Rene Rondeau's site, that shows a recent demonstration of a tinfoil cylinder. Sound quality? Is *really*, really impressive, especially for music. So impressive, that I think Mackie is going to get one. Well, maybe a wax one - I suspect Mackie is going to be the very first audiophile. XD lmfao.
...and, there, wiki's article on phonograph cylinders: commercial ones would play about 2 minutes of music. That's what I was looking for. (Descriptions of gorgeous tinfoil machines like this one - which I am insanely in love with - mention things like "could only record 50-60 words". Not quite enough to work with.) Tough to find pictures of machines from before 1900, and apparently the material the earliest wax cylinders were made of...uh, didn't survive well. Many fogged during the summer due to high heat, and inconsistent ingredient formulations were an issue. (The tinfoil ones can't be played back anymore at all. That's so sad.)
The cardboard tubes the cylinders were packaged in? Just gave company name, artist info was hand-written on them. No marking on the cylinders themselves at all - though an announcer often gave that info at the start of the recording. To hold one properly, you should stick your fingers inside the cylinder at either end, not touching the wax part. (This, on further thought, makes an awful lot of sense. You could buy attachments to shave flat - and thus erase - recorded cylinders.) Such odd little details, things you'd never think of questioning...
Also - I suspect that, come editing time (and/or desperate-for-wordcount-time), I am going to make some serious, serious use of this stunning collection of old sheet music. What a truly amazing resource, I cannot WAIT to dive into it!
...but I should probably remedy my word count first. Worked early yesterday, so only had time to put in about 700 words in the morning, and when I got home, there was a football game to watch with Tom, and then we decided to have a nice lil evening. (Didn't post on here yesterday - backdated it when posted today.) Poor lil word count.
One last link: piano recording, no date, though I'd guess late 1880s-early 1890s, since it's a white cylinder of a metal soap, which was tried shortly after wax ones came on the market.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Notes
I was just checking up on when Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince and Other Tales" was published, to see if using "The Nightingale and the Rose" as a basis for the ballet was entirely absurd. 1888 - so, the story itself was written sometime before, and either which way, that's right about the correct time period.
I skimmed over Wikipedia's summary of the story (which I might re-read this morning, for reference and for sheer love of the thing), and discovered a good bunch of adaptations of the story have been done, including - totally unbeknownst to me - A BALLET. lmao. Had no idea. From 2007, so totally irrelevant to the story, but that's better for me anyway. Two reviews linger on the 'nets, the first of which is lovely, and, the way the nightingale seems to have been portrayed is *exactly* the thing I had in mind myself. I feel so validated. (The second review was brief and negative, dissing both the story and production, and saying the story was an odd choice for a ballet. I think it's absolutely perfect - simple by way of plot, incredibly rich in emotion.)
P.S. No I have no idea why Luce has brought a tiger to the theater. The thought popped into my head, and it seemed a good whim for him to have. Very decadent and absurd. He demanded to be allowed to do it.
I skimmed over Wikipedia's summary of the story (which I might re-read this morning, for reference and for sheer love of the thing), and discovered a good bunch of adaptations of the story have been done, including - totally unbeknownst to me - A BALLET. lmao. Had no idea. From 2007, so totally irrelevant to the story, but that's better for me anyway. Two reviews linger on the 'nets, the first of which is lovely, and, the way the nightingale seems to have been portrayed is *exactly* the thing I had in mind myself. I feel so validated. (The second review was brief and negative, dissing both the story and production, and saying the story was an odd choice for a ballet. I think it's absolutely perfect - simple by way of plot, incredibly rich in emotion.)
P.S. No I have no idea why Luce has brought a tiger to the theater. The thought popped into my head, and it seemed a good whim for him to have. Very decadent and absurd. He demanded to be allowed to do it.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Languages
I decided, 'way back when I initially wrote this chapter, that Azal was responsible for the creation of lots of languages. (There's a bit in the book of Enoch that tells of the various things the Grigori taught to man - languages were one of them, astronomy, cosmetics, all sorts of fun things.) So I'd always intended to have him slip into different ones at random, particularly in moments of high emotion - only I hadn't the time to look things up that year of NaNoWriMo, and though I'd made lists in the meantime, they hadn't been worked into the text yet. When I wrote the new Azal chapter for this NaNoWriMo... uh, I got caught up in what I was writing, and totally forgot about the language-thing. whoops.
So I've spent an hour this morning slipping in bits of things. I made a list of swear words in various languages yesterday, and I read over my lists of random phrases in other languages that I have in my binder of notes. I'd planned - and keep forgetting - to set up a post in which I a) give all the flowers mentioned and their meanings, which is often why they're present, and b) translate all the random bits of languages. I'm half-tempted not to do so - there are no such translations in the books I read from that time period, presumably because the audience at the time would have understood the bits in French (which I do not). But there are other languages I run into, and they're rarely translated - despite this, they lend a nice atmospheric effect, even when I can't figure out the meaning by context.
Still, I am the kind of person who flips to the back of the book to read eeeeevery footnote. So I will accommodate anyone else who is, too. ;) Also - if anyone notices any of these are waaay off the mark, please let me know. The internet is a sketchy resource at best when it comes to languages! (Japanese, I know enough of to figure if it's right or not. Latin and Italian, sometimes. Spanish, probably. Icelandic, the lines from Sigur Rós songs are right at least.)
bal masqué - French; masked ball
Bλακαϛ - Greek; stupid
Al ta'atzben otti - Hebrew; don't piss me off
Láttu mig í friði - Icelandic; leave me alone
Striapach - Gaelic; whore
endur fyrir löngu - Icelandic; a long time ago
urusai - Japanese (which not everyone has the font for, so I've Romanized); shut up
divooneh - Persian; mad, crazy, insane
Εὐαί - Greek; onomatopoeic - a cry of joy
fête - French; celebration, party
Broðum og drekkum saddir - Icelandic; we eat and drink ourselves full
I'm aware that I'm a little heavy on the Icelandic. This is because: I found good sources for whole phrases of it, it is crazy old, and it looks awesome. ;) It's also, if I recall correctly, very close to the oldest form of English, so given that English is largely what's spoken in the story, I suppose it's sort of fitting.
So I've spent an hour this morning slipping in bits of things. I made a list of swear words in various languages yesterday, and I read over my lists of random phrases in other languages that I have in my binder of notes. I'd planned - and keep forgetting - to set up a post in which I a) give all the flowers mentioned and their meanings, which is often why they're present, and b) translate all the random bits of languages. I'm half-tempted not to do so - there are no such translations in the books I read from that time period, presumably because the audience at the time would have understood the bits in French (which I do not). But there are other languages I run into, and they're rarely translated - despite this, they lend a nice atmospheric effect, even when I can't figure out the meaning by context.
Still, I am the kind of person who flips to the back of the book to read eeeeevery footnote. So I will accommodate anyone else who is, too. ;) Also - if anyone notices any of these are waaay off the mark, please let me know. The internet is a sketchy resource at best when it comes to languages! (Japanese, I know enough of to figure if it's right or not. Latin and Italian, sometimes. Spanish, probably. Icelandic, the lines from Sigur Rós songs are right at least.)
bal masqué - French; masked ball
Bλακαϛ - Greek; stupid
Al ta'atzben otti - Hebrew; don't piss me off
Láttu mig í friði - Icelandic; leave me alone
Striapach - Gaelic; whore
endur fyrir löngu - Icelandic; a long time ago
urusai - Japanese (which not everyone has the font for, so I've Romanized); shut up
divooneh - Persian; mad, crazy, insane
Εὐαί - Greek; onomatopoeic - a cry of joy
fête - French; celebration, party
Broðum og drekkum saddir - Icelandic; we eat and drink ourselves full
I'm aware that I'm a little heavy on the Icelandic. This is because: I found good sources for whole phrases of it, it is crazy old, and it looks awesome. ;) It's also, if I recall correctly, very close to the oldest form of English, so given that English is largely what's spoken in the story, I suppose it's sort of fitting.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Resources
Project Gutenberg, wonderful in so many ways, and it's a delight everytime I land on the site. I needed a poem for Veri, and Goethe came to mind. A quick swing by Wiki to make sure I was in the right time period (Eliot, sadly, is too recent for using in this story), and to remind myself what it was by Goethe that I had liked so much. (Sorrows of Young Werther. Why do I not own this book yet?? Adding to Kaboodle list now.)
Snagged a book of Goethe's poems from Gutenberg, skimmed through, and printed a handful of the early ones. (I was more interested in something visceral, melancholy, and.. well, angsty. The younger the writer, the more of that sort they write.)
And I suspect that I, like Veri, will have the line "Conceal my affliction, conceal thy delight" running through my head for quite some time. I, also like Veri, have a stronger gut intuition of the lines than actual comprehension, but that only means it can take on a thousand meanings in my thoughts.
Snagged a book of Goethe's poems from Gutenberg, skimmed through, and printed a handful of the early ones. (I was more interested in something visceral, melancholy, and.. well, angsty. The younger the writer, the more of that sort they write.)
And I suspect that I, like Veri, will have the line "Conceal my affliction, conceal thy delight" running through my head for quite some time. I, also like Veri, have a stronger gut intuition of the lines than actual comprehension, but that only means it can take on a thousand meanings in my thoughts.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Research Notes
I've done a lot of research in the past few years of the origins of the Bible and Christianity and things. A handful of Teaching Company lecture series, some Wikipedia, the Book of Enoch, assorted other things. (I blame Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash for starting this, with all of its ancient Mesopotamian mythos.)
Originally, I started out this morning by going over some Wiki entries on labyrinths and yew trees that I'd looked at yesterday, thinking those would be the topics of conversation. Buuuut that didn't really last, Mark went a little more into his studies than I'd planned. (This happens eeeevery time he talks. Convenient character flaw.) I did some double-checking before I wrote these passages out; a lot of this information lives in fragmented form in my head. I know the flood story variant is in Gilgamesh, but it had slipped my mind that even that description was borrowed from an earlier source. I knew the opening of Genesis paralleled the Enûma Eliš, but, having learned this from an audio lecture, I had NO frickin' clue how to spell it. (Ay-noo-mah AY-leesh.) So, this chapter brought to you by Wikipedia, Professor Amy-Jill Levine's course on the Old Testament, my mom who gave me a copy of Gilgamesh (and Star Trek TNG for causing this), aaand a little more Wikipedia.
Originally, I started out this morning by going over some Wiki entries on labyrinths and yew trees that I'd looked at yesterday, thinking those would be the topics of conversation. Buuuut that didn't really last, Mark went a little more into his studies than I'd planned. (This happens eeeevery time he talks. Convenient character flaw.) I did some double-checking before I wrote these passages out; a lot of this information lives in fragmented form in my head. I know the flood story variant is in Gilgamesh, but it had slipped my mind that even that description was borrowed from an earlier source. I knew the opening of Genesis paralleled the Enûma Eliš, but, having learned this from an audio lecture, I had NO frickin' clue how to spell it. (Ay-noo-mah AY-leesh.) So, this chapter brought to you by Wikipedia, Professor Amy-Jill Levine's course on the Old Testament, my mom who gave me a copy of Gilgamesh (and Star Trek TNG for causing this), aaand a little more Wikipedia.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
