Enemy of Entropy

Sam and I just listened to “Female Characters,” episode 42 of the Game Master Show. The topic came up because Erin, one of the hosts, realized that she was willing to put female characters through some experiences that she wouldn’t apply to males. There was a fair amount of talk about the Heroine’s Journey and how it differs from the Hero’s Journey and some discussion of men playing female characters.

It was a really good episode, and while it is long I encourage you to give it a listen.

(This is going to be about adult topics, so if that’s going to bother you, don’t follow the cut link!)

(Continue Reading …)

I’ve certainly had a sweet one

Michelle Sagara wrote a wonderful post today about how mothering is like writing.

Wag the Dog, anyone?

There have always existed three ways of keeping the people loving and loyal. One is to leave them alone, to trust them and not to interfere. This plan, however, has very seldom been practised, because the politicians regard the public as a cow to be milked, and something must be done to make it stand quiet.

So they try Plan Number Two, which consists in hypnotizing the public by means of shows, festivals, parades, prizes and many paid speeches, sermons and editorials, wherein and whereby the public is told how much is being done for it, and how fortunate it is in being protected and wisely cared for by its divinely appointed guardians. Then the band strikes up, the flags are waved, three passes are made, one to the right and two to the left; and we, being completely under the hypnosis, hurrah ourselves hoarse.

Plan Number Three is a very ancient one and is always held back to be used in case Number Two fails. It is for the benefit of the people who do not pass readily under hypnotic control. If there are too many of these, they have been known to pluck up courage and answer back to the speeches, sermons and editorials. Sometimes they refuse to hurrah when the bass-drum plays, in which case they have occasionally been arrested for contumacy and contravention by stocky men, in wide-awake hats, who lead the strenuous life. This Plan Number Three provides for an armed force that shall overawe, if necessary, all who are not hypnotized. The army is used for two purposes—to coerce disturbers at home, and to get up a war at a distance, and thus distract attention from the troubles near at hand. Napoleon used to say that the only sure cure for internal dissension was a foreign war: this would draw the disturbers away, on the plea of patriotism, so they would win enough outside loot to satisfy them, or else they would all get killed, it really didn’t matter much; and as for loot, if it was taken from foreigners, there was no sin.

A careful analyst might here say that Plan Number Three is only a variation of Plan Number Two—the end being gained by hypnotic effects in either event, for the army is conscripted from the people to use against the people, just as you turn steam from a boiler into the fire-box to increase the draft. …

The passage is by Elbert Green Hubbard, from Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. XIV: Great Musicians, Chapter 8: “Ludwig van Beethoven”. I can’t honestly see what it has to do with Beethoven in particular, but perhaps that would become clear in context.

I’d never heard of Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson (or of the author, at all) until I was browsing through some of the quotations at Gaia¹ a while back. This bit is too long for my quotations file, but I love it too much to just delete it.

“You’ll get over it…” It’s the clichés that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don’t get over it because ‘it’ is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it’s The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is the shape of you and no-one else can fit it. Why would I want them to? I’ve thought a lot about death recently, the finality of it, the argument ending in mid-air. One of us hadn’t finished, why did the other one go? And why without warning? Even death after long illness is without warning. The moment you had prepared for so carefully took you by storm. The troops broke through the window and snatched the body and the body is gone. The day before the Wednesday last, this time a year ago, you were here and now you’re not. Why not? Death reduces us to the baffled logic of a child. If yesterday why not today? And where are you? Fragile creatures of a small blue planet, surrounded by light years of silent space. Do the dead find peace beyond the rattle of the world? What peace is there for us whose best love cannot return them even for a day? I raise my head to the door and think I will see you in the frame. I know it is your voice in the corridor but when I run outside the corridor is empty. There is nothing I can do that will make any difference. The last word is yours. The fluttering in the stomach goes away and the dull waking pain. Sometimes I think of you and I feel giddy. Memory makes me lightheaded, drunk on champagne. All the things we did. And if anyone had said this was the price I would have agreed to pay it. That surprises me; that with the hurt and the mess comes a shaft of recognition. It was worth it. Love is worth it.

After reading about the book, I was surprised to find that it isn’t about the obvious sort of loss. The novel is described as an erotic homage to a lover’s body, but one of the intriguing aspect is that the author never gives the narrator a gender. I’m going to try to find it to give it a read.

And another Stitching Blogger Question of the week, which should leave me all caught up:

Do you have any pieces that you would liked passed on to future
generations as family heirlooms?

At one time, I thought so. My mother has a Tigerlily piece I did for her, and my father has a big Marine Corps Emblem that hangs in his office. Unfortunately, the first piece I ever framed and gave to them suffered smoke damage, and I haven’t been able to get it completely clean yet. They haven’t expressed any interest in having it back, either. Mom stuck another piece I did and gave to her in a drawer, and forgot that I’d done it at all.

Some of the pieces I did for my first husband’s family, like a baby sampler and a nice serving tray, may get passed on. Maybe. They may have gotten rid of them because of the association with an ex-spouse. Who knows?