I roll my Bardic Knowledge check...

I admit, it's been (mumndleby-mumble) years since my best late-high school friend said "hey, want to play a D&D game with me?" While I still love the fantasy genre*, I've not played the game itself in what feels like lifetimes.

If there was ever something that got me itching to try it again all these years later though, it was this book:



The gist of the story is the early life and apprenticeship of a young bard in 6th c. Wales. Of course traditional tales are interwoven with the narrative, but neater still I thought was the snippets of instruction we got to sit in on - "What are the 24 treasures of Britain? No, no, his was a silver crown, not a gold one!"

For half a second, I could almost see Miss K from once-upon-a-time whispering across the pizza and soda pop "you remember your old master talking about something like this once ... let's see what you remember..."

Miss K was a darned gifted storyteller in her own right.

But anyhow - the book itself?

Hrmmm... I'd say very good if you're the target audience - say you've an interest in Dark Ages Britain, or in the foundation of those bardic stereotypes we see in the genre today. Outside of that, it might feel a little much like homework - the author's SCA years and research are definitely poking out around the edges. The short appendix was nice, but it was really just enough to whet the appetite**.

Basically, if you liked the setting of Mists of Avalon, you'd prolly enjoy this one. There's not the same 70's/80's feminist pagan undertone, but the level of storytelling and immersion is about the same. It's considerably denser than a Mercedes Lackey novel, but not nearly so much so as Tolkien.. decent middle ground.

Definitely worth rereading to catch the lost pieces. And it was just plain fun.






----------------------
* Depending on the quality of the source, of course. A few years back immersing myself in it again, I waded through a pile of "elvish" themed novels. Most all failed on a single point - all the characters were essentially late 20th/early 21st century Americans, just with pointy ears and funny colored hair. Sort of like being at a Ren Faire - the costumes can be nice and you occasionally hear a jolly accent, but the cultural assumptions you're surrounded with are no different than at the McDonalds down the road. Comfortable, yes.... but bland, especially in a novel.

Compare that to, say - the Silmarillion. It's a dense slog in places, but you definitely know you're amongst a different-thinking people.




** One more reason to finally start on the Mabinogion serious-like though. I could use the break from all those civilized folk down by the Mediterranean.

jenga!

So I was talking with my father a few weeks back, telling him about this little self-taught Western Civ course I've been doing on the side.

"I guess I'm looking for the cultural equivalent of a stud finder" I say. "It's like this whole traditional Western Culture thing is a wall in the house, and we keep wanting to knock out part to put in a nice set of bay windows for a good view of the scenery... How do I know this part of the wall can come out without consequence, but that part holds a load-bearing structure that will bring the whole house down around our ears if it's destroyed? "

That's why this whole "back to the books" bug hit me in the first place.

Great case in point comes up in the dust-up over at Marko's over gay marriage.

Frankly, I think anyone who says it's a slam-dunk easy issue doesn't really understand those on the opposite side -which is often the case when you're talking competing goods.

First, let's dispense with the "I'm for unions, not marriage" argument. Even given the spotty record of "separate but equal" in this country, the shift of semantics in the argument just in the last ten years should be sufficient to anyone taking the long view that the one means the other, likely within a generation. Two at the outside.

So -
The "pro" side is easy, we get that all the day. "Equal Rights" "Just like anti-miscegenation laws" etc. And frankly, to the degree same-gender attraction is inborn* the former is a solid argument.

The latter less so - as the "con" side points out, marriage has in the Western world always been a heterosexual convention. And frankly, the "we've always done it this way" is not an argument to toss aside lightly. It's not always easy, it's especially painful for those who don't fit the mold... but for sheer utilitarian pragmatism, the "toss the kids together while they're hot for each other, make it hard for them to split up in the tough times, make the parents responsible for the kids and the strong adults for the elderly" model has been around for thousands of years because it works.

Those old writings and proscriptions haven't lasted just on the say-so of men in funny hats. There's generations of trial and error living in those books. The result... it doesn't always work well, certainly not always painlessly, and some people suffer... but it keeps the better part of society functioning enough to have a culture to pass down from one generation to the next.

We ignore that to our own peril - the effect of widespread fatherlessness in some quarters of the nation is surely good evidence to the point.

The "pro" side will then respond "Surely by your argument the straights are doing more damage than the gays possibly could."

To which the honest "con" will say "you're absolutely right. And that may well be (probably is) the much bigger problem. But if the problem stems from deviating from "X" how is going further still from "X" going to make things better?"



So can we knock out that wall or can't we?



The "pro" will frequently point to interracial marriage as a previous example of "wasn't that a bunch of fuss over nothing?" I don't think that's a good comparison - given that anti-miscegenation laws are of comparatively recent origin, and aren't proscribed in the religious literature of our tradition either***.

A better historical analogue would be I think - slavery.

Bear with me here, both sides - this makes more sense than it sounds at first hearing.


If I lived in 1810, I could look at the vast expanse of human history -from thousands of years of religious tradition, to Classical texts, to the whole of the world around me at the time, and see slavery in one form or another everywhere I looked. "It's just the way the world works" I could conclude.

Could a society continue to function without cheap labor for the menial tasks? It hadn't yet. Further, more than a few people argued for the civilizing effect servitude had on the slave population, comparing it against the rough tribal life****. Then there were the pragmatic concerns, as Jefferson's famous "tiger by the tail" comment makes clear.

How do you free a whole people without plunging the nation into blood?
Answer....we didn't.

Now, a hundred-odd years after the fact, it's easy to say "yes, abolition was absolutely the correct decision." The upheaval is a distant memory, the dead only hazy photos and names in lists - not family we watched whipped until their back was in shreds, or killed by a foraging invading army.

It's an easy choice - so long as it's not one we have to make, and pay the devil's bill for ourselves.


Miss D has commented once that we're still very early in the cultural fallout of cheap, reliable birth control. I think she's absolutely right, and would add to that again the extended adolescence my father noted. This is one more dramatic change in host we've seen in the last few generations.

Personally, I think it's inevitable. Ideally, I'd like to throw up my hands and say "I have no clue on this one. Let California and Vermont do it, Georgia and South Carolina refuse, and we'll know in five generations or so how much the pros outweigh the cons.*****"

Practically, I don't think the answer will be that clear. I expect it will slowly, haltingly, become more and more of an agonized issue, then a fait accompli and warrant hardly a raised eyebrow. What happens after - no idea. I'm selfish enough to note that the Judeo-Christian model of marriage was a step up for women in the Classical world******, and enough of a believer in human fallibility to be cautious about slouching away from that - even for the noblest of reasons.

At the same time, I see how many women of my generation are saying "you know, that women's lib thing is nice and all... but I'd really rather be a stay-at-home mom." Once the fight is over, more of the old order creeps back in on the heels of Momma Nature than the fighters ever expected.

So for all the rambling, at this point paint me in the "cautiously pro, with a host of caveats and disclaimers I expect would get ignored to our cost or prove irrelevant with time" camp.


I guess we'll see.







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* My take.. yes mostly, but not nearly to the extent it's portrayed today... cultural expectations and mores play a huge role here, whether we're talking Hellenistic pederasty or the "LUGs" of my old dorm (by way of disclamer, myself included).

** Yes, I know about affrèrement. With all respect to my friends who prefer to roam their own side of the pasture as it were - calling what looks to amount to "blood-brother" bond proof of early civil unions/marriages is stretching credibility .

*** Marrying outside the faith, fairly common prohibition/taboo. Marrying outside the race, not so much.

**** An argument I expect at home in the Roman's mouth talking about his Gaulic maidservant as the Southern gentleman comparing life on the plantation with that in Africa. And un PC as it is to say... both have a point. Not many Rwandan genocides in Alabama, and my people gave up hoarding skulls and burning wicker men loooooong time back. Cattle raiding took a bit longer to give up though. :)

***** No choice is without tradeoffs. I treasure my ability to go work at a professional job, the equal to the guys in the office. That doesn't mean I'm not aware that "lots of women doing professional work" means "more skilled labor supply" means "lower wages for everybody." You pays your money, you makes your choices.

****** In the Celtic/"barbarian" world? My jury's still out on that, but I rather expect the status of a Boadaceia was the rare exception, not the rule.

Alaskan whirlybirds

It's not all cubs and DHCs up here.. various kinds of helicopters are regularly taking folk about - checking the pipeline, flightseeing, you name it. Most don't have quite the old-timey charm of the the taildraggers you see all the time, but this visitor to the state had a fairly familiar silhouette underneath the nice paint job.


Surplus? Civilian production from the getgo? No idea, but it's apparently been upgraded something fierce for fire service and the like down Oregon way. These little guys are fairly common here -


Strange tarmac fellows. (That Rooskie plane is all kinds of nifty. It's just begging for a Steampunk photoshoot, isn't it?)

One more poor dear, needing some kind attention..

We were only sophomores...

Gah. So the other day I was talking with a friend about the whole Western Civ thing, and he mentioned some point of law....

"oh, like Hobbes" I blurt without thinking...

conversation skitters to a halt.

"Hobbes, you know, 'nasty brutish and short?' Hobbes? Leviathan? Social Contract?"

yeah.

Gads. I'm becoming that gal. The one with the dangerously little bit of knowledge that comes across as a knowitall pain in the rear. All I need is some $5 coffee and those little rectangle 60's glasses, jeepers.





Gah. So.. TV! Here's the latest bit of "YouTube U" that's been playing in the background -



Very pretty series, with just enough hooks to get the gist of things and even the occasional lucid comment to point out where things were left out. I was poking around the used book store in town for some primary sources to check against, but they seem to have forgotten they're a used book store and are asking almost as much as the shop up the street for new books. So to the internets again. Whatever did we do before?

Finally, I have to admit. I know they're shallow by necessity, but I love documentaries like this - it's so much easier to keep all the -iuses and -ideses straight when they're actually being played by actors. :)










---------------------------
* Lest it sound I'm picking on the man, let me just say he's one of the smartest (and sweetest) dudes I know. Awesome guy.

Bearkiller's plane

First, all you Mike "Bearkiller" Havel fans, here's what the guy's old office looked like:













Piper twin (this ones a Navajo though, I believe). It's a little pedestrian by Alaskan standards, hardly anything you'd really want to call "bush" - but looks like a fun ride nonetheless - from the front seat anyhow. Just what you need to start your "tech has died" TEOTWAWKI adventure!

To nitpick on Havel's character a bit as a means to segue - an Idaho charter pilot c.1998 is unlikely to call himself a "bush pilot" - and less likely to be taken seriously by his peers if he did.

Besides, I've been in the Idaho backcountry. I've been in the Alaska backcountry. Both can reward "stupid" with "dead" plenty quick, but there's simply no comparison on the "wildness" scale.

Even the old backcountry pros in Alaska I've seen so far seem cagey about whether they'll accept the honorific. The consensus seems to be that that those days are gone.. the support is better, the planes are better, the navaids are loads better - and of course the rules of the game have changed (at least on paper and within sight of the FAA. ;) ) Thus the environment that made a "bush pilot" what he was ain't around anymore, even here.

That said, I'm not but certain they aren't at least as good as those in years past though. Granted, flying tourists up to Denali ain't exactly the same as flying serum to Pt. Barrow, but.... wow can they work some magic in those little cubs.

In a way, it feels like I imagine it was for my grandparents growing up in Texas, just after the turn of the last century. The glory days of the high frontier are gone, but the taste of it is still in living memory, and there's plenty of open country to go exploring in.



It may not be what it was - but you're not likely to find a freer place anywhere in America - if not the world.

playing tourist

When you live in a tourist destination, it's just plain silly not to take advantage and play tourist in your backyard occasionally. This trip to find "where is it they take all the pictures of town for the brochures from?" turned into a nice walk through Earthquake Park. Hardly any skeeters yet either!

darn footnotes.

It feels ages ago when my college roomie pushed Heinlein's "The Notebooks of Lazurus Long" into my hands. She loved the stories, but intentionally skipped most of his philosophizing and sermonizing. I didn't.. and in retrospect he was pretty darn influential on me. Most of that list of aphorisms has long sense faded in my memory, but the gist of this one has always been there -

What are the facts? Again and again and again -- what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" -- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!

Yes, it was the "verdict of history" part that caught my mind then and still does today - I've spoken before of how much I loved the storytellers in my history classes, and not being able to learn from them struck me as odd. I mean, I know the gist of the argument - that the history we have is necessarily compromised by the passions of those who recorded it then and those who report it now*. To some degree you can compensate by listening to different storytellers - a little Victor Hanson here, a little Howard Zinn there... but it's just frustrating trying to get to the truth of things.

Here's what brings it up - after a discussion at Tam's place I mention the Cahillian notion of monasteries in Ireland keeping the Classical lights burning through the Dark Ages period has been percolating some in the back of my consciousness. So I do a bit more reading for balance and context and come across this event referenced in rebuttal:

Book burning seems to have started rather early as a Christian practice, during the apostolic age. In Acts 19:17-19, we learn that the Greeks and Jews in the city of Ephesus responded to Paul's preaching by destroying their books valued at fifty thousand pieces of silver--an act that, if not urged by Paul, certainly earned his approval. Cahill does, however, let fall a few hints regarding Christianity's war against learning...

Now yes, Paul does record this event. There's no reason to doubt it happened.

¹⁷And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. ¹⁸Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. ¹⁹And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver.

The thing is... what was burned? Parenti gives the impression we're talking Aristotle and Homer and all manner of high learning. The last pastor I heard on this - himself fairly well versed on the ancient world - says it was the ancient equivalent to a pile of Silver Ravenwolf books.** So which was it - renunciation of divination and sorcery, or the destruction of high art? Or for that matter, in a lot of works of the time - could you have been able to tell the difference? Is that an astronomical tretise, or a junk astrology book? Where's the line, when we're talking this period?

Another example - Hypatia. The secularist fad following Sagan's Cosmos series looks to have virtually beatified her, a feminist scientist cut down by rampaging Christian mobs. Nevermind her own Neoplatonist faith would have likely put her today as much at home in a new age shop in Southern California than a college physics lab.

Quite honestly, it leaves me overwhelmed. Too many BIG issues of the past, each of which carry great implications right down to our day... and the interpretation of any of them can radically change based on one bit of information conviently de-emphasized or recast.

ugh. time to go out and enjoy the sunshine.







----------------------
* For an excellent demonstration of this, find a way to watch Lesson 6 of "The Truth Project." Whatever you think of Focus on the Family, conservative Christianity, or the rightness or wrongness of the worldview they promote -that particular section is an excellent explication of the nature of "revisionism" - "why should I spend all this time trying to convince you, when all I have to do is fiddle with the past, and make you believe what I want in the present."

** "Pop Witchcraft" basically. You know those "101 spells to find your sweetheart by prom, make that pimple go away, and find your Animal Spirit" books you've been seeing proliferate on the bargain rack at Barnes and Noble? Yeah, that kind of stuff.

Just another day in Paradise..

Yeah, this was a pretty good day all told.

Let's see.. started out with the airplane work. Mounted a STOL wingtip on a C-180 and am finally getting in sight of finishing the interior panels. When they say "some fitting required" .... yeah. Like as in totally heat-reshaping some pieces and endless repetitions of cut-testfit-file-testfit-drill new holes in the airframe-cut-testfit.... Guh. It'll be nice to get back to something greasy and not fiberglassy after this. Had a brief respite at lunch for a soda out on the tarmac - PERFECT gorgeous beautiful day. Even got the chance to get a nice look at one of the Beavers from a air service out in the Wrangells. Still had a nice round engine to, just like God and DHC intended 'em to wear.



After that, ducked out early to prepare for a recital my fiddle teacher put together. The prep talk was "don't worry, it's mostly kids playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, you'll do fine." She neglected to mention the loads of incredibly talented teens who've been playing seemingly since about the time they could walk. Great music... but a weeeee bit intimidating to someone trying to get back in the pool after Too Many Years away. Still and all, it was very worthwhile*.

After THAT... much more fun. I stopped by the bookstore on the way home to browse a bit, and in the parking lot got called over by a gentleman who apparently is one the local street celebrities of Anchorage. Seems he uses an old fiddle as a critter call, and the case on my shoulder caught his attention. We chat some, and he starts to demonstrate. "This a Beluga whale" says he, sliding on the strings. Then lets me tune it standard-like and just play on it some while he tells me all kinds of stories from his life here. This is the time his fiddle was stolen... and see, here's the set of photos he sent Sarah last fall, along with a nice letter from her staff saying she deeply appreciated them, but they had to be returned as a gift thanks to campaign policy. All in all, it was just a delightful conversation. I even got a wonderful picture of a moose from his collection!

This is surely the most interesting place I ever have lived.


Yeah.... life in Alaska is well and truly unique.







-------------------
* Personally, I think I performed at about 80%-not great,but not bad for squeezing practice in between "lots of overtime at work to finish the project at job#1" and "job#2." Technically it was more or less correct - just a couple bobbles that probably weren't too awful noticeable if you didn't know the piece. But way too stolid and mechanical - it was the classic "recital in front of everybody better than you" nerves thing - the emotion and crowd engagement just weren't there. It was still a good experience.. nothing like a little humiliation now and again to kick your tuckuss into getting better.

daylight oil

The nice thing about Alaska in the late spring - you can work till after nine, take a half hour or more coming home, putter some, and still have time for a nice walk in the daylight.

Sure miss the stars all summer though.

mea culpas

First, remember that Change in my pocket essay from once upon a time? Yeah. Hooboy was I wrong. Not to mention the fact that more than a few folks thought the good General dictatorial himself in his own time.

The more things change...

In (marginally) related news, inasmuch as it relates to amending old missteps... remember that AR I was building? Yeah, well..... I decided to sell it all off after all. It was kind of weird.. the last centerfire in the house, gone. The only thing left was grampa's old .22 - the one I was first taught the art with, ages and ages ago.. and probably the only one I can guarantee I won't sell, just because I never saw it as really mine... just that I happened to be one holding onto it until the next generation claims it. So for a while.. that was it. Pretty much everything else was gone.

Somehow though... I don't think you guys will blame me too awful much. Seems trick ARs can sell for a nice penny these days, and that ol' Ouroboros turned into this:



Thumps more than I remember .308 doing, and the brake is a pain... but it seemed a nice compromise between the Un-PC evil black rifle and something actually useful for up here. Today was "sight in" day at the range with friends, and other than getting muzzle-swept by our neighbors getting their introduction to pistols, it was a fine ol' time.

Ended up with Palak Paneer and a trip to the bookstore to, so it had to be good.

Mmmm... mango lassi. :)

Menagerie in the Clouds

Lets get caught up a little bit on Alaskan Spring.

First, as Miss D noted, last weekend was the Alaskan Aviation tradeshow. As you might expect, it was... eclectic. I don't have many pictures of the inside, but a friend from the local A&P/IA of our acquaintance was kind enough to give a short tour of the airfield outside.

I don't even have a picture of the F22 Raptor the guys from Elmendorf had on display - odd as it seems to say, living right next door to the airbase (pretty much literally, actually) ... it seemed almost mundane in comparison to everything else on the field that day. Which is pretty amazing, when you think about it. Our guide went on in great detail about how awesome it was... and awesome is the word. Seeing them perform in the sky last summer... wow. Those guys do things in those planes that just leave you standing there with your mouth hanging open, thinking... "but.... planes can't do that..... "

On up the line a bit... remember last summer how I mentioned that "Walk on Jiangyin?" Yeah, well.. here's the real life Serenity - tell me those giant engines hanging down don't look familar. They even let us come inside to look around. Ain't that cool?





So that's what the military was showing off. Also a trainer jet our host waxed rhapsodic on, a Blackhawk, and I think another cargo plane or two. Then came the good stuff. This darling "had a story" ... but unfortunately our host couldn't remember it... other than it (logically enough) involved being in Japan in the post-war era.



THIS one is probably my favorite, just because it shows off the quirky"never let a good plane die" nature of this state. A WWII era cargo plane, still operating on regular runs. I don't know if you can see it in the picture, but it is wearing skis. Alaska is awesome.



Here we see a crime against nature:


Seriously, I get why they did it. I'm sure it performs better (and cheaper) than the original engine. The lodge I worked at once upon a time had a turbine-converted Otter that was just awesome - although the conversion looked a little less.. makeshift than this darling Beaver. Yes, they still run Beavers and Otters up here as a matter of course. Great fun. :)



And here we see "seaplane row"


Once inside, you see a genuine Alaskan commuter, used by the owner and his family to commute back and forth from (I think) Butterfly Lake to Lake Hood in town once upon a time.

There was lots more of course.. a couple WWII era fighters, some tricked out cubs and I think maybe a Husky. Lots and lots of stuff I didn't recognize, including some the Aviation Heritage Museum brought out. And of course... lots of guys with leis and really big grins.



This... is a just awesome place.

I must be missing something.

The "WTH is going on?" search continues - most recently working through some of the original source material referenced in that thumbnail philosophy book* - just finished book one of Plato's Republic.

I'll confess.. I wasn't inclined to be charitable - I never knew much of Plato beyond the whole "Philosopher King" thing, which just almost never turns out well. I can't say I know what I was expecting... something more... highbrow somehow? At the end of book one I can say it wasn't this..

Socrates is coming across like ... well like a horses' ass, frankly. The dialogs so far sound somewhere between a drunken college bull session** and my little brother once upon a time playing smartypants, trying to twist every answer to mean virtually it's opposite. His "I know nothing" protestations start feeling like false modesty half a paragraph in, and well... his self-description at his trial as a "gadfly" sounds about right. I can see why the Athenians eventually grew exasperated enough with him to hand him the cup of hemlock.

Add to that more logic holes than a Star Trek plot***, and .... ugh.

The thing must hold together better in Greek, I hope? I mean, it's still around after almost 2500 years, so it's going to get better..... right? So far, I'm just not seeing the attraction.

Then again - when Socrates was being the Athenians' own personal Loki in public debates, my ancestors were still doing pretty much the same thing they'd be doing for the next two thousand years: reciting heroic tales about stealing each others' cows.

So, I gotta give the guy that much credit.

Oh well.. on to the rest of it. I can't wait to get to the whole utopia thing. That'll be sweet, I bet.

As a (marginally related) note, I also got through the Communist Manifesto recently to. Jeepers... I mean, I knew the economics was nuts, but never knew there was the whole "no more families" thing in there to. What is it with these guys? I can't quite shake the feeling under all the high-flying cerebral philosophizing there's just some fundamental "I can't get a chick, so you should share yours" thing going on.

ick.



----------------------------------------------


* thank goodness for podcasts and audio books! Amazing how much extra you can get done with those things...

** which honestly, is about what they were, yeah?

*** Mostly of the "If A, then B" variety, along with gross generalizations. I assume it holds up better in the original Greek, and the English terms used are a good deal less... precise? I hope?

housekeeping.

1. Mr M, your first (second?) box is packed. It should go out by Saturday.
2. Those of you with unreplied to messages... old ones are caught up .
3. As you can tell.. very sporadic lately. I wish I could say that's likely to change.. but not so much for the next couple weeks at least, most likely.