Oct 21
Many people would agree that it’s been a terrible year. Usually such a year would generate some cleverly epic Halloween costumes, but there’s nowhere to show them off, except virtually. And that’s not a lot of fun. Still, if you’re up for it, here are some randomly generated ideas. (And check out costumes for …
Oct 14
Yes, there is such a thing as beer for dogs. You can buy it here. One of my favorite things to randomize is food. Because it itself is so random — most people don’t know exactly what they’re going to eat that day. They grab a hot dog from a cart on the street, have …
Oct 07
Cocktails, or mixed alcoholic drinks, are one of those workhorse culinary items whose exact origin is unknown. Most pinpoint it to the United States in the early 19th century. But it wasn’t until the 20th century until they really took off, especially after WWII when boozing and socializing went hand-in-hand with the middle class …
Sep 30
In The Last Battle, Lewis introduces the reader to Narnia’s equivalent of Satan: Tash. Tash is the foremost deity of the desert nation of Calormen, mentioned first in The Horse and His Boy. However, in that book we are not told what he looked like, only his temple: it has a silver-plated roof and sits …
Sep 16
Lewis never again got as exotic in the Chronicles as he did in with Calormen. The Valley of Ten Thousand Perfumes, Lake Mezreel, the crossroads city of Azim Balda, the Flaming Mountain of Lagour… these places don’t come into the plots, they are mentioned only in passing. But they do add to the richness. Writing …
Sep 09
One of the questions I always wanted answered about Narnia-the-world is that of other civilizations. Sure, we had Narnia; then Telmar, dull and problematic as it was, and Archenland in Prince Caspian; in the next book Galma, Terabinthia, Calormen, and the Seven Isles came along, then Ettinsmoor and the Underworld in The Silver Chair. But …
Aug 26
Charn vies with Tashbaan as my favorite Narnian fantasy setting. Not that I’d want to live there, of course. It’s dead, dry, and spooky. But Charn in its prime… well! It must have been something to see. One of the reasons it’s so evocative is the name. It’s short and blunt, like a location of …
Aug 19
The Magician’s Nephew ranks third (tied with The Horse and His Boy) as my Chronicles favorite for the Weird Tales awesomeness that is Charn. As I wrote in The Wild Lands of the North, Lewis was more than a little influenced by the pulps (and the pulps influenced by Lord Dunsany and E. R. Eddison, …
Aug 12
The Horse and His Boy ties for my third favorite of the Chronicles with The Magician’s Nephew. Perhaps Nephew has the edge, because of the awesomeness of Charn, the Wood Between the Worlds, and Aslan’s Garden. But Horse has Tashbaan and the desert. It’s a close call. The flavor is different from the rest of …
Aug 11
Other posts in this series: The Odd Geography of the Utter East The Wild Lands of the North When speaking of Narnia, the name can mean both the country, and the world. Narnia-the-country’s boundaries are straightforward. This is a Baynes map from Prince Caspian. North: That line of hills that has a V-shape at the …