Bibliophilia and Project Gutenberg

"love of books" wikipedia.com

While the Gutenberg press is an important piece of history and the Gutenberg is a priceless foreshadowing of the spread of literacy and literature that we enjoy today, I'd like to point out Project Gutenberg, a great online database of free books. Project Gutenberg has books whose copyright has expired in the United States (it's not very different in Canada). So, while it doesn't have the Da Vinci Code, it does have the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci.

But, how to navigate through Project Gutenberg? How do I find a good book to read? How an I supposed to judge the book, without a cover? Well, books written that long ago (whose author has been dead at least 50 years, I think, is the rule), were not as they are today. An illustration: no publisher in their sane state would ever publish Lord of the Rings, as it is, today. But, publishing hasn't always been as picky as it is today. In the time of Milton and John Stuart Mills, reading was for the elite, not meant for the common folk, exactly. In other words, their works are sometimes terse, use big words, refer to things in their own era, refer to complicated and little-known concepts that would have been know to serious scholars in their own time, and commit other atrocities that no modern publisher would allow to go out with their daughters - I mean, printers. So, standing at the entrance of this great library (or staring at the home page of Project Gutenberg), where to start?

Believe it or not, there are some books that are so good that, no matter how convoluted the writing is, they are still worth reading. Some people (me included) would argue that that would be all books that have survived the test of time. But, here are two book to start of the trek on the path to literacy.

The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius. It was written by Boethius in the Middle Ages, while he was in prison and awaiting execution by the king, who had been his friend. The book is a hypothesized conversation between Boethius and the goddess Philosophy. While I have to concede that if you need to be told by an invisible goddess that things are going to be ok, things are probably not going to be ok. Divine intervention of any kind didn't help Joan of Arc (and it didn't help Boethius, who was executed after a few years in jail), but this book transcends the pathetic lament of a condemned man into a masterpiece of consolation. At any rate, it's an interesting read and very in tune with the weltschmerz theme of this blog.

Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor who had a tumultuous reign, constantly being attacked or attacking enemies on the Danube. But, Marcus Aurelius was a thoughtful man, illustriously producing this book of philosophy. This is in contrast to his son, Commodus, who thought he was Hercules and was murdered by his own praetorian guards, but had a very peaceful reign and built pretty buildings.

In closing, I'd like to quote Marcus Aurelius.

"The universe is change; our lives are what our thoughts make it." Meditations

And how can you think cool thoughts if you don't read them too?

Latrinalia

"words fit for a bathrom wall" Grandiloquent Dictionary

People use latrinalia in speech all the time. As an exercise, repeat the word "people" fifteen times in your head. For me, around the tenth time, it seems no longer clear to me that word means and it really no longer makes sense. Instead of a word - one entity, complete with definition and pronunciation, and not to mention all those letters - I start getting a string of sounds that is no longer meaningful noise. It's not quite the same with profanity, but it seems that sensitivity to that kind of latrinalia gets dulled in today's society.

That's why I won't write about it.

Instead, I've decided to tackle, most vigorously, a word that I absolutely hate. It's a word so heinous that Rumpelstiltskin himself would stamp madly, shouting "the devil made it up, the devil made it up!". It's a word that represents the zeitgeist of the very lowest scum of the earth. It's a word that used as a most uncaring and disgusting excuse, when trying to explain away some terrible thing. It depletes momentous events into tiny incidences. It is atrocious, abominable and certainly fit for the virtual bathroom with all the rest of the unwanted feces of society.

"Relative" is the thing, wherein I'll catch the king.

"Relative" is a word that's used to cheapen merit. Recall the characters Tommy and Jillian from the lethologica article.

Example the First:
Jillian: Tommy, quit celebrating, you've only biked 10 kilometers.
Tommy: Well, actually, it's all relative. You see, our friend Jim bikes 20 kilometers a day and those guys in the Tour de France biked over 200 kilometers during one leg of the race. But, Jim and those racers in the Tour de France are actually good at biking and they're trained and stuff. It's nothing for them to bike 200 k, but it's a monumental feat for me to bike 10k. So, for a habitual couch-potato like me to bike that far … it's incredible, it's great! I'm incredible, I'm great, I win the Tour de France!

Example the Second:
Jillian: I got 90% on all of my exams!
Tommy: Ah, but relative to your previous record of 95%, I'd say you're slipping.

"Relative" is a word that's used to reduce morality and ethics into squalor.

Example the First:
Jillian: Tommy, this is terrible. You're cheating on your take-home exam by copying from your unsuspecting roommate.
Tommy: Well, relatively, in comparison to, um, professional con artists, this is merely child's play. It's completely alright, applause-worthy, even, that I'm only copying a few answers.

Example the Second:
Tommy: Jillian, you're being a bad person, the way you've been rude and mean to everyone lately.
Jillian: That's ridiculous, Tommy! You see, good and bad are relative. How do you know what's bad and what's good? There's no such thing as good and bad when you think about it, so I'm a perfectly ok person.

In short, I absolutely loathe the word "relative" and it's usage in phrases to the effect of "it's all relative". It's not all relative. All hyperbole aside, sure, we have to make allowance for different people. But, just because someone is good at something, doesn't mean that they should get less credit for doing it. Just because there are worse things in the world, doesn't make a bad thing any less bad. Relativity and putting things in proper prospect is all good and fine, but there comes a time when you just have to face the facts and face the definitions. But, of all latrinalia, "relative" is the one that is not taboo. Thus, woe befell the land of weltschmerz.

Lethologica

"the inability to recall a specific word for something" Grandiloquent Dictionary

Lethologica comes over me often. Perhaps it's something to do with all those mathematical formulae and theorems that somehow drives all other expressions of ideas out of my mind (like words), or perhaps I'm just tired often. Examples would be "you know, the glass box that holds water and fish and isn't called an aquarium" (a tank) and "yeah, that person that stands at the front of the class and keeps the whole class awake, through the best napping hours of the day, no less, by constantly talking and scratching the blackboard with chalk" (a lecturer).

The cure? Why, that would be my good friend, the dictionary, which has brought me many lexical gems with which to illuminate the world of weltschmerz. There are online reverse dictionaries, where you enter the meaning and get a list of possible words.

Right. But, do we really want to be free of lethologica? What if the world becomes more disillusioning and you become more world-weary as you begin to name things? Does lethologica serve a higher purpose than embarrassment in conversations ("I can't believe you forgot the words 'tank' and 'lecturer'", replied my friend before cackling like fire-crackers.) and English writing examinations?

Well, let's create a character, say Tommy. I'll outline Tommy's actions with the corresponding forgotten word in parenthesis. By the way, these characters are not intended represent or misrepresent any persons of my acquaintance and is merely rhetorical device to illustrate the importance of forgetting certain words. So there.

Tommy has, though his many talents, earned some money. He decides to spend it on 50 hamburgers that he enjoys through the course of one day. (gluttony) Then, since Tommy has already earned some money, he decides to rest for the rest of the day watching random shows on television, instead of tackling any chores around his incredibly messy house with reeks of old laundry. (sloth) Tommy likes Erin and Erica likes Tommy, so Tommy flirts Erica to make Erin jealous and ask him out. (manipulative) While having pizza for dinner, Tommy eats the last piece without asking. (rude) Later, Tommy forgets about the email he promised to write to his friend Jim. Tommy agreed to drive Jim to a biking competition but telling Jim when they'd leave until the email he promised to send. The next day, Tommy forgets about Jim and goes on his merry way. Jim bikes 40 kilometers to his biking race, collapses halfway through the race and finishes last. (unreliable)

Satisfied with himself for a good night wasted, Tommy returns to his house at 4:00 in the morning, conveniently waking all of his housemates as he searches for a bottle of water, opening and slamming cupboard doors. (inconsiderate and disrespectful of others) Tommy buys lunch for Jim to apologize but forgets to throw out his trash after eating lunch. (littering) Talking to Erin and finding that Macbeth is Erin's favourite play, he claims to love Macbeth and Shakespeare, even though he dislikes Macbeth, never read the play, used the Cliff's notes to write his grade 11 essay on Macbeth, and doesn't think much of Shakespearean plays in general. (dishonest, hypocritical)///All in all, Tommy has does things that doesn't seem to out of the ordinary. Without the right words, he's just a … guy. A little forgetful and a bit inconsiderate, but Tommy seems to be alright. He did apologize to Jim, after all. But, with the ability of finding words restored, Tommy is gluttonous, lazy, manipulative, rude, unreliable, inconsiderate, disrespectful of many things, and dishonest. By Dante's standards, Tommy would be making his way to the Maleboge, where he would be walking around a fire wearing iron garments intended to inflict pain and difficulty walking. Admittedly, Tommy is a pretty crummy guy.

Without being extremely feministic, let's take a better example, say Jillian.

On a nice bright morning, Jillian wakes up with a headache and sleeps in (sloth). When she gets up, she cooks breakfast, but burns the eggs and bacon and forget to put the filter in the coffee maker. All the food has to be thrown out and Jillian goes out for breakfast. (wasteful) Being overly aware of her weight and a pimple on her nose, Jillian bursts into tears when she is teased about them. (hypersensitive) Jillian refuses to help her friend with homework because she is tired. (unkind) Jillian participates in a marathon for charity event, because the course goes through a nice part of town where Jillian doesn't usually get to run because of traffic. (selfish) The next morning, Jillian forgets to disable her alarm clock and wakes her roommate. (inconsiderate) Jillian then finds herself late to a midterm but persuades her professor to allow her the full time to write the exam, reminding him that he had been late to every lecture in the school term and leaves it to his conscience. (extortion)

You get the picture.

So, is the world always this much uglier when you pin words to actions? Perhaps, it is that the act of finding the right word involves the act of judgment. And judgment makes the world a weary place. It's a little like weltschmerz, isn't it?

Misoneism

"fear, hatred or intolerance of change" Merriam Webster Dictionary Online

<>From the first time you heard the word "mistake", to sometime in your education when you discovered "mishap" and "misanthrope", you came to the realization that the prefix "mis-" rarely started anything good. This time, from a troop of online and in-print dictionaries and the virtual land of weltschmerz, I bring to you, the king of all "mis-"s, "misoneism".

Personally, I think that it's an underused word. Misoneism is a concept that is, though hard to recognize, common in every day and age. A bunch of people, who were used to not having a king, became suddenly faced with having an emperor, albeit a well-liked one, decided to assassinate Julius Caesar on the Ides of March. As children worldwide, ushered in a new era of adoration for a certain book (by J.K. Rowlings), certain churches and parents grew afraid of the demonic influence of said book and banned it. Not so far from fair Waterloo, through long field of wheat and of corn, the dusty road runs by, to many-silo-ed Amish Country, where lives a group of people caught in time. Oscar Wilde hated change to the skyline of Paris so much that he would have lunch everyday at the Eiffel Tower, just so he wouldn't have to look at it. A whole class was shocked and confounded when one of their classmates got a hair cut. Making a crazy change in one's life is generally considered … crazy and out of this world. Need I continue? From measly incidents, like the loss of 8 inches of hair, to resolves of great fortitude, like the assassination of Julius Caesar, misoneism has ruled history.

Today, misoneism is not admitted by Microsoft's spellchecker (without some persuasion), but it is admitted, in mild doses, everywhere. People talk about making a change to their life. They talk about making everything better for themselves. Throughout the land, there are murmurings of drastic diets, sensational makeovers, and the ever prevalent "life-changing experience". But, changing one's image, with hair or weight or over-the-top makeup, is perceived as going out on a limb. Changing one's life, when all's said and done and the life-changing moment's come and gone, is a resolution that is often softened by things like "Rome wasn't build in one day", "there's always tomorrow", and the idea that change should come slowly and must be evaluated at every step to make sure it's a change for the better. People are ever preoccupied with the idea that they'll lose their idea of self if they change just one bit, thus causing their name to be synonymous with "misfit" and other travesties to the magnitude of the sky falling down on their lives. So, in the end, those dramatic life-altering experiences are fairy tales that we can watch on reality television because people are all too afraid or too reluctant to let go of a former self. I believe that's called a mild case of misoneism. Oh, and cause for weltschmerz.

Introspection

"the detailed examination of your own feelings, thoughts, and motives" Encarta Dictionary Online

Getting to know yourself is a bit redundant, at first glance. I mean, everyone know themselves, don't they? You know how you'd act in certain circumstances, probably because you're going to be there when you decide. This is you that we're talking about, not some character in a book or some random person in the street. So, why is introspection even a concept if it's so redundant?

It turns out (a magical phrase that asserts that the next assertion is true and trustworthy, by some kind of black magic) that introspection is rather common concept. Phrases like "self-concept", "self esteem", and "self-examination" are tossed around in psychology books quite regularly. The point is that, how do you expect to know someone else if you don't know yourself? And how do you know yourself?

Well, in a moment of journalistic sense of adventure and, well, boredom, I decided to find out. It seems the most common ways are personality tests, like the Myer-Briggs test. These are all fun and good for fun and laughs, but I'd argue that they don't really tell you anything that you don't already know. You'd probably already know if you're introverted or extroverted and don't need to answer a bunch of questions to determine it. A funnier test is one that's based on the Big Five personality traits (Neuroticism, Extrovertism, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience). It sounds good because those 5 traits do sound like reasonable measures of someone's personality, however the tests are not good. The questions are so narrow in their expected range of answer that I don't think these tests have any merit. For example, the question "do you vote liberal" is used to determine you openness to experience. Like IQ tests that are only accurate for IQ's about 100, these tests also suffer from the same bias. If you're even one bit quirky, you results will likely return high levels of neuroticism. In other words, Hans Christian Andersen (who was hypersensitive) would have been accused of having personality disorders like paranoia and narcissism. Right.

The verdict: personality test are a waste of time. It's our actions that determine who we are, not how we answer ridiculous questions. Self-discovery is likely to be a long journey, not a 10 minute quiz.

Hypergraphia II

Well, after 3 days of using all of my free time, and some of my not-so-free time, I've written a 10-page outline, character/setting sketches, and 763 words of my novel. Great ... Only 49 237 more words to go.

I was searching around on the internet a few days ago and I found a software that claims to help you write your novel. It's called newnovelist and, intrigued by the idea but not willing to buy it, I researched it. It turns out that newnovelist only helps you organize your novel, with helpful prompts, like "describe your character". Following a good, old fashion, Aristotelian three act plot method, it leads the writer through creating a plot. But, after reading all those reviews, my verdict is that, like more things that claim to do things (make you a better artist, give you extraordinary music skills), this is no more useful than an organisational tool. An Aristotelian plot is easy to create on one's own. Act I, the main character gets chased up the tree. Act II, rocks and sticks are hurled into the tree for the main character to dodge. Act III, the main character makes a graceful descent from the tree. The end.

So, there's the secret to newnovelist. Perhaps I should write my own novel-writing software ....

Hypergraphia

overwhelming urge to write/inability to stop writing

Yes. Every writer's dream. And it exists. It turns out that when hypergraphia occurs by itself (and not forced by the writer with thousands of cups of coffee) it's actually not healthy or voluntary, as in the case of Virginia Ridley (google Viriginia Ridley).

Going along with my weekly theme of things, this week is novel-writing week, not to be confused with short-story-writing week, poetry-writing week, and blog-writing week which will occur later. Last week (art week), I produced a few good sketches and one pieced together of flower petals. This week, I'm going to try the equivalent. So, perhaps not a full 50,000 word novel, but at least the start of one, including character sketches and a plot outline.

Garble

"to so alter or distort as to create a wrong impression or change the meaning." Merriam-Webster Online

For a short, simple word, I have a short, simple story of a short, simple bird. To the right is the Jan Savery 1651 painting of a dodo bird, which has helped create the overall feeling that dodos were fat, clumsy creatures. However, according to scientist like Andrew Kitchener, Savery's models were captive dodo's with restrictive cages and stuffed with the wrong food. In fact, some scientists estimate that had the dodo actually looked like the obese, fluffy creatures of Savery's drawings, they would have collapsed because their skeletal system is not strong enough to support all that fat. The scientific community has since moved toward a slimmer, more streamlined version of the dodo. Yet, the misconception of the fat, immobile dodo, which had its origins in one artist's misconception of a now-extinct bird, still persists. Very sad.

Kalopsia

"the delusions that things are more beautiful than they really are." Grandiloquent Dictionary online

It's certainly a common delusion. There are many troublesome ways in which kalopsia happens, but I will only trouble myself with three ways.

One: Looking back through rose-coloured glasses. This usually has to do with missing the good old day, when every day was a model day, photographed through sepia lenses and housed in expensive albums or golden frames. As a painter, this happens by thinking back to an idea that was forgotten and thinking, "oh, that would have made a great painting, why are my best ideas forgotten?". As an anecdote, the mathematician Paul Erdös often accused the Supreme Fascist (God) of hiding his socks and best equations. I feel that same way about answers to exam questions.

Two: Zooming in on a small part of a large piece. No matter how badly things go, there's always something salvageable and can be made into quite a nice memory. In a painting, no matter how much the whole canvas resembles a puddles of brown goop, there's always some little corner with a swirl of colour that looks brilliant, once you zoom in on it with a magnifying glass, digital camera, and probably Photoshop. Then, you're free to call the painting a masterpiece, despite its puddle-like qualities.

Three: Looking at things upside down. Looking at a confounded dilemma as though you weren't apart of it can be quite entertaining. Odysseus might have laughed at a poor little ship stuck between monsters Scylla and Charybdis in the strait of Messia, had it not been for his heroic disposition and, more importantly, his presence on the little poor ship. The same happens when you turn a distorted sketch and look at it upside down. Because your brain isn't used to seeing things upside down (particularly faces), it doesn't register that the nose is crooked and the eyes are too far apart. So, whatever alien you drew will look like a pulchritudinous portrait of some model.

So, it's quite easy to create the delusion of beauty, isn't it. This is why, for me at least, looking at things in too much detail with expose the tinted-glasses, unfair projection, and Medusas lurking around the canvas. Does every play need to be analyzed line by line? Does every moment of a soccer game need to be scrutinized? Does every painting need to be appraised to the sky by examining the brush strokes of the artists? Except for the last five minutes of the recent German-Italy World Cup game, I think not.

Ars Gratia Artis

art of art's sake, in English

My thing of this week is art. I've always been a little sketcher, and looking back on my several notebooks of sketches ... I'd certainly call it ars gratia artis. There's no monetary profit, merely satisfaction of mind at a job well done. My favourite is Raphael. When I visited Florence with a tour group and didn't have time to stop and visit the museum, I was certainly not a happy camper. But, I do have notebooks of copies of Raphael sketches. I've known people who don't understand why I copy Raphael sketches as exercises, instead of making new art. This seems to me to be too easy a thing to be worth explaining. It's like asking a math professor why 1 + 1 is 2 and having them look at the paper, nod, and say "oh yeah, that's obvious".

Raphael has some of the best technique in the world. His sketches have a realism that's is unforeseeable by looking at the lines independently. He's not to be confused with Michangelo, who (to me at least) has more "decisive" strokes. Of course, decisiveness is not out of place for a man who drew a perfect circle freehanded to prove to Pope Julius II that he was worthy of a commission.

The fact of the matter is: whatever art is, it starts with good technique. It doesn't matter that your painting does not have a perfect sketch of a human hand; it does matter that you can draw a perfect sketch of a human hand. No matter how abstract the art is, there is always something that points to the technique of the artist. But, notwithstanding the greatness of the masters of the Renaissance, art move on. The Renaissance was refreshing - the figures were realistic and didn't all have halos on their heads and the building had dimension - but its time passed. And so has the time of Impressionism, Cubism (not completely I guess), Expressionism ... all those 'isms. After looking through a whole pile of May/June 06 art magazine, I still can't pinpoint what art is "in" today. There was a variety of things, including landscapes with not a scratch of abstraction, paintings made of crayon blasted with a heatgun (which is actually pretty, google Dan Kaufman), and Kandinsky-like shapes in primary colours. Of course, I supposed Bodies in Motion (human components from real human corpses turned into plastic) is also considered art.
What is art today and how has is deviated from the original idea of art? Wasn't art supposed to be aesthetically pleasing? Or is art just things that have statements and meaning (hence excluding "pretty painting" of vases and flowers)? And where do you draw the line between meaning attached to the painting by the painter and meaning drawn by some connotation of the viewer? Perhaps I think a vase of pretty daisies expresses the innocence of the world. Perhaps if it were a vase of sunflowers ... then there's no question of it being art, since van Gogh imitations are considered artistic.

I'll conclude with the cautionary tale of Han van Meegeren, the beginning of whose tale many struggling artists can relate to. Han van Meegeren was a Dutch painter in the 20th century. While studying architecture at university, van Meegeren developed magnificent painting skills for painting in the style of the great Dutch painters (Vermeer, Rembrandt). However, he was ridiculed by the art critics and couldn't sell his art. But, he was so devoted to his style of painting, as many artists are, that he wanted to remain with his style. To prove the critics wrong, van Meegeren's paintings are indeed valuable today. In fact, van Meegeren is one of the most famous art forgers of all time, known for forging Vermeers. He had passed off many paintings and Vermeers before one surface in the Goring's collection at the end of WWII and was traced back to him.

So, besides the narrow distinction of the ars gratia artis that may or may not have been present in the artwork of van Meegeren (he did paint in the style that he liked, but for unreasonable not to mention illegal profit), the point is the van Meegeren's paintings were merely worthless forgeries, but they were escalated to the point of very desirable art after his arrest. In fact, may famous forgeries become collectible art after their forger has been unmasked (google de Hory, Rospigliosi cup). Does fame make the art? From the notoriety of forgeries to the somewhat recent book of paintings from Paul McCartney, I would say there's some correlation. So, all that philosophical, aesthetical arguement about the nature of art is trumped by a bit of notoriety.

A little like artistic weltschmerz? I think so.

Charette

"an intensive effort to complete something before the deadline." Grandiloquent Dictionary Online


Charette. That sums up my lack of posts on this blog for the last week. It was a combination of 3 midterm exams, 3 assignments, and 1 take-home exam that did the mischief.

But, in general, there does tend to be more effort when there is a deadline in view. If I were to plan to write a book eventually, where "eventually" has a vague sense of infinite time, it would probably never be written or even started. However, with the right inspiration (a fast-approaching deadline and a large word count) a novel can be quickly written. In fact, it can be written in 3 days.

Now would be a good time to introduce my favourite contest of the year, the 3-day novel contest. Yes, that's right; write a novel in 3 days. It's a contests that happens over Labour Day weekend, where no one has an excuse not to try because they're working. Supposedly, Voltaire wrote Candide in a 3-day-novel-writing frenzy, but Candide is fast and furious enough to be written in 3 days. The only problem is that a novel is usually something that takes place over a long period of time, which you can hardly hope to imitate in three measly days - unless, of course, you're some aristocratic French philosopher with a funny penname (doesn't Voltaire know you're supposed to have two names? But, then again, I guess Stendhal didn't either.).

If you prefer a longer novel writing contest, I recommend NaNoWriMo, short for National Novel Writing Month. Here, in the month of September, every sloth too afraid of the charette of a 3-day deadline can write their gruesomely, dreadfully, melodramatic novels. The only catch here is that a "novel" defined in the NaNoWriMo world has 50,000 words, which I can tell you from experience is hard to achieve, no matter how much gibberish you stuff the pages in.

With the fruits of the pressures of deadlines in mind, I leave you to enter one or both of these wonderful contests. The novels produced are often low in quality (my flow of consciousness novel in the style of Faulkner certainly didn't catch on with the judges) but are good souvenirs of a starving writer. Figuratively speaking, of course.