Sep 27
Want to make your fantasy world really fantasyish? Add in some -wyns, -yrs, -wys, with a sprinkling of gws and lls, just like the characters and places in The Mabinogion, a collection of Welsh folktales written down in the 14th century. Based on oral traditions that were older, they served as the basis for modern …
Aug 16
Centaurs are one of the mythic creatures most associated with Narnia, along with fauns and nymphs. They appear in four of the seven books (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle) where they are renowned for being wise teachers, prophets, healers, and stargazers, as well as …
Aug 15
The White Album by Joan Didion Open Road Media, 2017 (Originally published by Simon & Schuster, 1979) [ #1 — 3rd Year, 23rd Letter: A book whose title begins with the letter W) ] When I first made up my reading list at the start of the year I hadn’t decided on a candidate for …
Aug 07
The Granta Book of India Edited by Ian Jack Granta Publications, 2004 [ #15: East meets West: A book taking place in Asia (Turkey to Japan, Siberia to Vietnam) ] The local Little Free Library has, again, provided me with a challenge book! This one, The Granta Book of India. I had a good experience …
Jul 28
Previous parts of this series: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV It was not only the green hue of absinthe that broadcast the deadly nature of the Lady of the Green Kirtle. It was the color itself, which received a such a bad rep in the 19th century it became synonymous with …
Jun 18
The School of Whoredom by Pietro Aretino (Translated by Rose Maria Falvo, Alessandro Gallenzi and Rebecca Skipwith) Hesperus Press Ltd., 2003 [ #31 — No hablo: A book originally written in another language (either a translation or in the original if you’d like!)] The School for Whores, by Pietro Aretino, is not long, but boy …
Jun 14
Victorian writer Charles Dickens was known for the odd and whimsical names he gave to his characters, presumably so readers would better remember them. As his stories were first serialized in publications over many weeks or months, this makes sense. These odd names also served a satirical purpose. Some of the more memorable of these …
May 24
I became aware of Led Zeppelin fanfic in the late 1990s when the web exploded with archive sites. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. I’d known of Star Trek fanfic for years, and Buffy, X-files, and Xena fanfic sites were all over the place. But Zep fanfic was a new thing, especially …
May 03
Above is a portrait of the most recent of Hungary’s exports: the Vizsla, wearing a traditional peasant outfit courtesy of AI art. The speedy, good-natured hunting dog joins the rank of other notable exports like paprika, ghoulash, video pioneer Ernie Kovacs, and Gene Simmons (by way of Israel) to name a few. Situated in Central …
Apr 26
Like the color green, the color yellow has a split personality. Yellow, and its cousin gold, can mean wealth, sunlight, cheer and happiness, even life itself. But it is also the color of sweat, feces and urine, cowardice and betrayal, just as green’s sour side is that of poison, jealousy, snot, and pus. Unlike green, …