Archive for September, 2009
Kowal Chaucer’d (Listen!)
Posted by Michael Livingston in Chaucer'd on September 11th, 2009
Article Series - Chaucerizing
It’s no secret that among my favorite people on the planet is Mary Robinette Kowal. She’s been ripping up the proverbial charts of the speculative fiction industry of late, with awards (little ol’ thing called the Campbell) and book deals and generally exquisite swellness. She was even recently nominated for a Hugo (!), for her excellent short story “Evil Robot Monkey.”
I offered to Chaucerize something of Mary’s, and she left it up to me to determine what it would be. I naturally chose her Hugo-nodded tale of a monkey and its potter’s wheel. So here, on the occasion of her moving into a new domicile, is a loosely Chaucer’d snippet from “Evil Robot Monkey,” which I suggest you read in full (in Modern English, naturally) just as soon as you finish up here:
Mary Robinette Kowal, “Yvele Metal Ape”
Cover Art by Mary Robinette Kowal
Aphra Behn Article in Print
Posted by Michael Livingston in Academics on September 8th, 2009
Not sure how I missed posting about this, but on my return from Colorado I found waiting for me a few copies of The Explicator, a journal of short papers that explicate literary texts. Opening one up (Volume 67, Number 3, pages 191-95, for those following at home) brought me to my latest published article: “Aphra Behn’s ‘The Disappointment’ as Ring Composition.”
Aphra Behn Sketch, from Wikipedia
Frankly, the article is not a game-changer. Aphra Behn (1640-1689) is about 200 years out of my field of academic specialization, and I’d suspect that the points I make about the structure of her poem “The Disappointment” will be of interest to a fairly small audience even among scholars devoted to her work. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed reading the article in print. For one thing, once I publish something it doesn’t really feel like it’s mine anymore; I tend to read it just like I’m reading any other piece of criticism, so I can be alternatively annoyed or surprised by it. More than that, though, I’m glad to see this one in print since, as I wrote last spring, it’s an interesting example of the germination process for some of my academic work.
Audio Recording
Posted by Michael Livingston in Uncategorized on September 7th, 2009
I recently finished up another exercise in Chaucerin’ some speculative fiction, which is good news.
The bad news is that I’m having trouble trying to record it. I don’t know squat about how to do it properly, and I have to rely on the cheap-o microphones that have come with my cheap-o computers over the years, recording in the middle of noisy houses. I’m sure this shows on some of my other recordings.
At any rate, my one recording so far of this latest one sounds like I’m transmitting from a submarine. I’m going to try another cheap-o microphone and see how that goes. After all, the recording is a house-warming gift for a certain special someone who’s been moving from sea to shining sea of late. I don’t want it to lag too far behind her arrival in the house!
Pithy Preaching and Paying Sin
Posted by Michael Livingston in Homelife on September 5th, 2009
Driving home from a lovely picnic today, we passed one of those sign-boards in front of a little Christian church. You know, the ones with the movable type on which someone spells out some sort of brief, thought-provoking message that’s intended to pump up the church-going crowd? I think they’re the preaching equivalent of hearing that “Y’all ready for this?” song before a sporting event.
At any rate, this particular sign caught my eye because it boldly pronounced the following:
Sin has no mimimum wage
That sounds good and preachy, for sure, and it even has a sort of home-spun familiarity to it. Yet, at the same time, it’s been several hours and I’m still uncertain what it actually means.
Does sin work for free, or is it on a tip system? If sin works for free, do you have to pay for virtue? And does any of this have anything to do with tithing at the church in question?
I’m hopelessly confused, and I’ve half a mind to go there this Sunday in the hope of getting some clarity on just what the heck the sign-maker was going for here.
On the plus side, as confusing as this is, it could have been worse.
Tolkien Article Revisions
Posted by Michael Livingston in Academics on September 4th, 2009
Back in June I wrote about the odd communication I received from the editors of a Prestigious Journal to which I’d submitted my most recent Tolkien article. I’ve now heard back officially, and it seems my hypothesis was pretty accurate: they sent the piece to two readers, one of whom liked it and one of whom did not. So they sent it to a third to break the tie.
That third reader liked it but didn’t seem comfortable with it being published in the Prestigious Journal since, well, it’s subject is Tolkien.
Alas, this was the sort of reaction I was expecting. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting any of the readers to vote in favor of it being published in the Prestigious Journal. So I tip my hat gratefully to the one positive reader, who opened his review thus:
It is high time that [Prestigious Journal] published work on Tolkien in view of the growing presence of Tolkien scholarship in English literary studies. I believe that Tolkien, modesty aside, would have been pleased with this submission as [Prestigious Journal's] first entry into the field.
That’s pretty swell.
As it happens, I was able to glean from all three readers quite a few little adjustments that I ought to make to the piece. The question is whether I’ll resubmit it to Prestigious Journal after those are made. It’s probably silly to do so but, well, I sorta want to be the person to get Tolkien on their pages, you know?
Picture of a Molecule
Posted by Michael Livingston in Academics on September 2nd, 2009
I don’t care who you are, you have to admit that this is cool.
I mean, that’s an image of a single molecule, showing the lattice structure of the atomic bonds. It’s boggling.
Next thing we know they’re going to be getting shots of individual electrons caught in their quantum orbits!
Cutler and My Column
Posted by Michael Livingston in Homelife on September 1st, 2009
So yesterday I got an unexpected gift: a lengthy comment on my post about the Media Mythologies Surrounding the Jay Cutler Saga. I’m quite certain the commenter, Dale, did not intend for me to be smiling as much as I was when I reached the end of what he wrote — but I couldn’t help it. By the end I’d learned I have a column, I’m a hack, and I still don’t know what I’m talking about.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s go through it bit by bit, shall we? And keep in mind, as we do so, that I’ve not changed or deleted or in any way edited the commenter’s words (or, e.g., deleted apostrophes). That just wouldn’t be fair.
Livingston as usual you dont know what your talking about.
Good opening, Dale. Strong and to the point. A bit bewildering, though, with the “as usual” line: I don’t know you, and this is your first comment on the site. Are you really a regular reader who has been somehow grinding your teeth at my inane stupidity for months and months and only now chose to break your angry silence?
It’s clear, as we’ll see, that Dale thinks I hate Cutler and adore McDaniels, which is not the case. I would’ve done pretty much whatever I had to do to keep Cutler around, frankly, since he has astounding skills and would’ve put up Madden numbers in McDaniels’ inarguably potent offensive system. All I’m just trying to keep facts divorced from misleading legend here.
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