The Sunday Poem: Soul Food

 Posted by (Visited 5520 times)  The Sunday Poem
Nov 202005
 

If we are what we eat then dogs are kibble,
All bounding grains and some
Substantial portion of lamb.
And us? Walking past a park we are all

Gangly asparagus and sly cabbage,
Chicken more often than we’d like,
All too often greasy fingered from fast
Eatings, while time takes away time.

Society ladies folded and folded over
Canapés, some revealing dustbin leftovers
And a tasteless heart, others housing
A surprise of flavor within complexity.

Powerful men made of the juices
Of dried up things, raisins and plums,
Often sniffed and judged wanting, with
All the taste in the bouquet.

Working men, beefy and blood red
Hearty from the day and from the dirt,
With a dash of potatoes behind their ears
And a dash of hops to keep their heads up.

Last, a surprise, the girls from both coasts,
Willowy to haggard, caught in their seasons,
Rose and primrose, orchid, dandelion,
Haughty, wondrous gaudy, tasteless flowers.

– July 8th, 2001

r u redy 4 txt?

 Posted by (Visited 6631 times)  Reading
Nov 192005
 

Just the other week, while I was in Korea, I faced the interesting task of explaining to Korean native speakers the phenomenon of “texting,” asking whether there was imilar jargon and slang being used in korean Internet-speak. They said that yes, there was, but they were intensely amused by the linguistic distortions inherent in the best SMS and l33t.

And now I see that the classics are getting translated. I dunno, as a former English major I ought to be horrified, but instead, I find charm in these:

  • Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” which describes hunky Mr. Darcy as “fit&loadd” (handsome and wealthy).
  • the ending to Jane Eyre — ‘MadwyfSetsFyr2Haus.’ (Mad wife sets fire to house.)
  • Hamlet’s famous query, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” becomes “2b? Nt2b? ???”
  • John Milton’s epic poem “Paradise Lost” begins “devl kikd outa hevn coz jelus of jesus&strts war.” (“The devil is kicked out of heaven because he is jealous of Jesus and starts a war.”)

    • In particular, color me unsurprised that Bleak House reduces down to a couple of sentences. That’s Dickens for ya.

    On vacation!

     Posted by (Visited 7360 times)  Misc, Open thread
    Nov 182005
     

    Blog posts may slow down somewhat. I intend to read, visit family, play guitar, and sketch, not necessarily in that order.

    The Making Light blog does open threads every once in a while. Consider this to be one. Post whatever, have a conversation amongst yourselves. Argue politics and religion.

    Thinking like the audience…

     Posted by (Visited 11745 times)  Game talk, Music
    Nov 172005
     

    Think Like a Player! provides us with this handy list derived from the not-dead-yet-dammit world of interactive fiction:

  • The Player Doesn’t Know What’s Important

    “…authors know what’s important in the text that’s mentioned and players don’t…”

    • Don’t bury relevant messages
    • Don’t make the player have to remember too much
  • The Player Doesn’t Think Your Game Is Special

    “…games are special and magical and beautiful to the authors. To the players, on the other hand, they’re exactly the same as the three dozen other games waiting for their attention…”)

    • The game must have something cool about it
    • This should be the most interesting story to be telling
    • Don’t do stupid things out of habit
  • The Player Can’t Read Your Mind

    “Important things should be in the game, and things in the game should be important.”

    • Puzzle solutions should be conceptually reversible
    • The game shouldn’t tell the whole story, it should tell the right parts of the story

    • Continue reading »

    Jason, “Hey, Wait” and “Sshhhh!”

     Posted by (Visited 5757 times)  Reading
    Nov 162005
     

    A while back I was lucky enough to meet Jim Lee, he of comics fame. We got to talking comics (of course) and I told him that I wasn’t much for the superhero stuff anymore. When I was a kid, yeah — it was all about JLA, Spidey, a little bit of X-Men (I kinda had a crush on Dazzler), Batman of course, and even some of the old 40’s Wonder Woman stories that I got in a tattered used paperback. I was also growing up outside the country, so I was heavily into Asterix, Tintin, the Marsupilami and the Moomins, Mafalda (finally available in English!!), and of course Valerian and his sidekick Laureline. Most of these latter ones are largely ignored in the States — it’s only recently that Valerian has gotten an English translation, for example.

    But then, a long hiatus, unbroken until my buddies in college turned me onto Watchmen and Sandman (which was then being released, one excruciating issue at a time, and which they kindly let me read issue by issue out of the polyethylene bags, no doubt ruining their collectible value). Because of them, I read Rude & Baron’s Nexus and Moore’s Swamp Thing and Miracleman runs, Ostrander’s Grimjack, and a host of others that let me know that comics had grown up a little bit while I wasn’t looking.

    Nowadays, if I read comics, it’ll be Gaiman and Moore (and yeah, there’s superheroes in Top Ten), or stuff like Maus, Persepolis, Blankets by Craig Thompson, or Jimmy Corrigan. But not much of the sort of thing that Jim draws himself, at least as I understand it.

    I shouldn’t have been surprised, of course, to learn that an accomplished comics artist is also a fan of all sorts of comics. So in the mail one day, I get a package with a bunch of comics that he thought I’d like. And the first ones I read were two by a Norwegian artist named Jason.

    I don’t think I can summarize these. After I read them I just sort of stared at them in disbelief. Jason draws anthropomorphic animals with almost no expression on their faces. He uses a thick, rough line. The books aren’t in color. Lots of repeated panels.

    And Hey, Wait… will just about tear your heart out in 64 efficient pages. It’s about friendship, about childish daring and peer pressure, about regret and loss, about how one incident can transform a life, about the way a memory can reshape every event that occurs and cast it in a different light. I don’t think it would work as a poem or a short story–it would come across as trite. But panel by panel, the artistry mounts until you reach the unbearable conclusion.

    Sshhhh! is more of a set of connected stories, ones that look at a life from different angles. They’re excellent, though not quite at the heights of Hey, Wait, which is simply one of the best comics I have ever read.

    In one way, though, it reminds me of how I felt when I finished watching Grave of the Fireflies — I am not quite sure I want to read it again. Not quite that bad, but getting there.

    Worth taking a look, even if you’ve given up on the funnybooks. Thanks, Jim.

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