What are you reading, watching and listening to? - All languages

[Salmoneus]

Isn't the Lotus Sutra being awesome the key doctrine of the Lotus Sutra? Some groups believe the Lotus Sutra is so awesome that just saying its name repeatedly is itself enough to ensure enlightenment. The actual content is secondary.

Think of it as a chain letter. "A tentasquillion beings in a flibdillion worlds have been enlightened by reading this letter and passing it on. You too will become enlightened like them, but only if you pass this letter on." Naturally, people passed it on. There's also an emperor's new clothes aspect to it - you're only enlightened if you recognise that the Lotus Sutra brings enlightenment and tell people that the Lotus Sutra brings enlightenment - so everybody tells people that the Lotus Sutra brings enlightenment.


That said, as I understand it, the ideological function of the thing was to reconfigure Buddhism, a religion that had done reasonably well within a particular ideological context in which its teachings made sense as a response to the existing religions, into a new religion that would have a broader appeal even to people who didn't know the original context. It's pretty no-nonsense about doing this, too:

- rather than Buddhahood being something difficult, it's actually really easy. All beings will eventually become Buddhas, and it seems much more straightforward than before. In particular, it lays the seeds for the later plethora of "One Weird Trick" schools of enlightenment;

- rather than Buddhas just, well, vanishing from existence into an eternal death, Buddhas are actually immortal, and continue to have fun lives as ghosts after their physical death, chatting with one another and popping in to lecture living people now and then;

- rather that Buddhadom being your only hope from unrelenting torment, you can now go to heaven when you die, which isn't as good as Buddhadom but still sounds relatively fun; this also helps explain why everyone can become a buddha even though people on earth are mostly arseholes - because lots of them can become buddhas in later lives in the buddha-fields;

- rather than enlightenment (and now heaven) being the only thing on offer, Buddhism can now help you in your ordinary life through magic spells and supernatural protectors;

- rather than Buddhism being austere and skeptical, Buddhism is now exciting: you no longer have to give up all your elaborate mytholigies, because New Buddhism has its own mythology, and it's even better than yours, with tentasquillions of beings and flibdillions of worlds and also dragons!

- meanwhile, different Buddhists teachers in the new territories shouldn't fight with one another, because all vehicles are just part of the one vehicle, so they should use all their energy competing against the non-Buddhists.


It's a recalibration that proved very succesful...

[mèþru]

Listening to Slam Dunk by Imralu - no lyrics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4AC_7Yhfco
Very good music!

[Ares Land]

A very amusing read -- in French, unfortunately! but quite relevant to conlanging: Poésie du gérondif, by J.P. Minaudier.
Minaudier has a hobby: he collects linguistic reference grammars. A very amusing read, and with quite sensible coverage of linguistics for the non-initiated.

I certainly can relate. (Although mine live in PDF format. I feel like I'm cheating, somehow.)

[mèþru]

in French, unfortunately!

Nothing's unfortunate about it being in a language other than English!

[Vijay]

in French, unfortunately!

Nothing's unfortunate about it being in a language other than English!

Except maybe people who are interested being unable to understand it.

[mèþru]

The English Beat - Too Nice To Talk To
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sY8qTDMSFc
In English obviously

[Salmoneus]

Anyway, I am indeed now reading Commyne's memoirs. They're... fascinating. In a frustrating way. Everyone betrays everyone else approximately every three pages or so.

I'm also working my way through Legends, the legendary 1998 epic fantasy short story anthology, since despite having been a fantasy fan in the 1990s I never actually got around to reading most of the big names. It's... actually surprisingly good. I mean, it's not great, but it's nowhere near as bad I feared it might be. Three and a half stories to go, and there haven't been any outright awful stories, though Stephen King's effort came close.

[So far I'd probably rate it (purely on the basis of these specific stories): Pratchett > Williams > Le Guin > Silverberg > Card > Goodkind > King. Halfway through Martin, which'll end up near the top, which will leave McCaffrey, Feist and Jordan left to go...]

[Ares Land]

Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century by William H. Patterson

I've always been fond of Heinlein, ever since I read Starship Troopers as an anti-military teenager and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as a communist 20-years old.

So of course when I found his biography was on Kindle, I bought it immediately. It's fascinating; though the sheer size of it is perhaps a little discouraging.
The one problem is, Patterson obviously believed every tall tale the old man ever told about himself, and he sure told a lot.
So far the story reads a bit like Chuck Norris facts meeting the Four Yorkshiremen.

"Young Robert A. Heinlein was born in Butler, Missouri, in a log cabin that he built himself. Then he started quantum physics and sniper training at two, walking two hours in the snow, uphill, both ways, and his dad killed him every morning."

[Ares Land]

Anyway, I am indeed now reading Commyne's memoirs. They're... fascinating. In a frustrating way. Everyone betrays everyone else approximately every three pages or so.

Oh! I definitely have to read these.
The betrayals are hardly surprising, I suppose. Charles the Bod and Louis XI went down in history as the worst magnificent bastards of the Middle Ages.

[Salmoneus]

Anyway, I am indeed now reading Commyne's memoirs. They're... fascinating. In a frustrating way. Everyone betrays everyone else approximately every three pages or so.

Oh! I definitely have to read these.
The betrayals are hardly surprising, I suppose. Charles the Bod and Louis XI went down in history as the worst magnificent bastards of the Middle Ages.

Although Commynes was close to Charles until he betrayed him - he had to calm him down to keep him from killing Louis at one point - it's not a flattering depiction of Charles. Commynes says he never showed any sign of fear, and had more stamina than anyone else he knew, and had great ambitions, and he's also clearly a brilliant leader of men (several times he has to personally rally his armies) - but also that his ambitions could never have been realised, and time and again he's portrayed as headstrong and foolish. I'm just getting to the bit where things get serious, and Commynes basically thinks the seige of Neuss was insane - Charles worked for years to persuade the English to invade France, and just when they're assembled in Dover, he refuses to abandon the siege of Neuss because he thinks that a defeat would harm his honour. Commynes thinks that if they'd followed their original plan, they'd probably have conquered France (both Charles and Edward had the best and biggest armies they'd ever had, and Brittany would have joined in as well).Instead, Charles wants to ALSO conquer the rhinelands, and Commynes is pretty clear that invading the Empire is impossible.

Louis, on the other hand, is interesting, because he's almost an inversion of the mediaeval alpha male. In peacetime, he has no social skills, is constantly rude about people, and then has to pay them off to forgive him. Commynes describes him as timorous, and in his actions he is constantly vacillating - he backs off whenever he seems to have the advantage, he forgives everybody, he's always renegotiating treaties after the fact. He puts up with everything - at one point Charles has basically taken him hostage, and he still refuses to stop pretending everything's fine*. But he constantly buys people off - all of his enemies' advisors and allies and relatives seem to end up working for him, because he rewards them and forgives them.

So, for instance, a guy on the border isn't sure which side to back. He gets the Duke to send him his (the guy's) brother with some Burgundian troops to hold his towns against Louis. But he repeatedly changes his mind and doesn't let them into the towns (he won't declare what side he's on until it's clear who will win). So his brother decides to betray him - if he is let into the towns, he'll just refuse to leave, and take them from his brother for the Duke. Now, Louis invades the area and captures the brother and finds out all about everyone's double dealing... to which is response is to put the brother (the Duke's man) in a senior command position in his own army. Everyone else is obsessed with honour and vendettas and personal grudges, but Louis just ignores everything other than practicality.

Recently the Duke was repeatedly invading France and burning things, and getting annoyed that Louis refused to fight back - because Louis realised that if he lost a major battle, he'd probably be deposed, so why fight? And now, the Duke has sufficiently annoyed and worried the English that Louis' starting to negotiate with them too.

We also get to meet Edward IV, who is entirely fixated on sex. He's deposed and reconquers England all in the space of a month, apparently partly because of his sex drive - Commynes says that London capitulated to Edward immediately in part because he was badly in debt to the merchants, who needed him to win in order to get their money back, and in part because he was on very good terms with most of the notable women of the city, who pleaded with their husbands on his behalf...

And Frederick III, who Commynes thinks is weak-willed but perceptive. He responds to diplomatic overtures with lengthy, bear-based parables.


*in a particular moment of madness, the King and the Duke are occupying two houses, with one barn between them. The Duke is paranoid, so stuffs the barn with archers, and both men have archers at the windows of their own houses. This is fortunate, because the actual owners of the houses lead a commando team of townsfolk to murder them both in the middle of the night, and the barn full of soldiers notices this. As a result, everybody starts shooting at everybody else, because it's dark and nobody knows what's going on...
-----

I'd say it's a fascinating and enjoyable read - Commynes is a very even-handed relator of events, and at least in this 20th century English translation sounds clear and modern and direct. On the other hand, I would say it's not an easy read. Commynes isn't a historian, and he's writing for a contemporary - there's LOTS of names of people and places with too little context, and sometimes he skips forward or remembers he forgot to say something so skips back, and of course everything is confusing anyway because nobody knows what's going on ever and everyone is betraying everyone else. It's not exactly confusing, in that the thread of what's happening is made clear, but it's inelegantly conveyed - it's a witness giving a big 'and then...' story, rather than a professional historian making things as clear as possible. The interest is more in what's happening than in the writing, although Commynes does have a wry sense of humour now and then.

I'm finding it slow going, but rewarding. Certainly would be of interest to conworlders, since it gives a very different and much more immediate look at what the feudal era was really like.

[Birdlang]

I was listening to a song in the Ngad’a language from Bajawa, Indonesia, Sapu Tangan.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eZX3eee335U&t=161s

[mèþru]

Bhangra Knights vs Husan - Bhangra Knights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm2uQDvjAK0
Punjabi (I guess) and English

[Vijay]

The non-English part sounds to me more like Hindi with a few Punjabi words in it. A lot of Bollywood songs mix those two languages, too. As far as I can remember right now, this is probably my favorite example.

[Raphael]

I started reading Winter War: Hoover, Roosevelt, and the First Clash Over the New Deal by Eric Rauchway, about the presidential transition of 1932/33, but now I've got a cold, so I try to take a break from everything that requires me to focus too much and that I don't absolutely need to do for now.

[alynnidalar]

I've spent the last three nights staying up until after midnight reading the Stormlight Archive series. This is why I deliberately held off on reading Brandon Sanderson's books for so long! I knew they were the exact sort of thing I would love, and therefore would be unable to put down (to the detriment of my well-being/job) until I finished them. Luckily there's only three of ten books out in the series and I'm 2/3 of the way through the third one... and I hopefully can hold off on picking up any other of his series until Christmas break, when I will have loads of time.

But they're sooooo goooooood... and sooooo delightfully long...

(this is not the first book series I've done this with, and it will certainly not be the last. Some series--they just get into my head and refuse to get out until I read the entire thing, which can be a problem if the series in question is very long. Luckily it isn't so bad when it's a series I've read before, because I like a lot of series with a lot of books.)

[Salmoneus]

I'm still trundling through Commynes, but now I appear to have started And Quiet Flows the Don as well...

[Linguoboy]

I appear to have started And Quiet Flows the Don as well...

Maybe I should make that my Big Russian Novel of the Winter? I bought a copy to read along with a friend but we broke up before that could happen.

[Salmoneus]

I appear to have started And Quiet Flows the Don as well...

Maybe I should make that my Big Russian Novel of the Winter? I bought a copy to read along with a friend but we broke up before that could happen.

Well, any novel that can by itself win its (supposed) author a Nobel Prize must be of some interest, my thinking goes. Also, it's one of my father's favourite novels (I think he only read it once, but it evidently left an impression).

But I think I may try again in the new year, probably with a different translation. Apparently all translations are fairly bad, but mine is early, and uneven - weirdly 19th century, wobbling between poetic brilliance and obscure clunkiness. And it's probably abridged, although it claims not to be - the translator apparently removed all the 'cultural' elements, on the grounds that his readers weren't cossacks, so wouldn't be interested in them.

Digression on the text: so far as I can see, in English there's the original Garry translation, then a Daglish editing and expansion of the Garry translation, then a 1984 Daglish re-translation of the Garry translation, then a late-1990s Murphy re-editing of the second Daglish translation. They also aren't translations of the same things: Sholokov divided the text in four parts, or alternatively wrote two novels, and it's not clear to me what's in the second novel and/or fourth part (my edition I think is only of the first three parts, but has been divided into three parts?).


Anyway: less than 100 pages in, and leaving aside the translation: it's intriguing. It's very grimdark, but with an element of humour too. It's easy to read when you're reading it, but I've not found it somethign that demands to be picked up again once it's been put down - but then, I'm still in the scene-setting phase, and the plot hasn't kicked in much, so...

[Salmoneus]

Meanwhile: I've been binge-re-watching the first season of Veronica Mars (since S4's coming out soon, with added JK Simmons and Patton Oswalt).

It's... still really good. This is the third time I've watched it, and the second time I got a bit impatient in places, which I think was due to burnout with the genre. But having not re-watched it in years - and not having seen much in the 'American high school' or 'procedural mystery' genres since - it's actually pretty much brilliant. There are a couple of episodes that are disposable, and a truly awful cameo by Paris Hilton in the second episode for some unknown reason, and for some reason you have to watch the first scene on Youtube*, but I don't think any episodes are real clunkers. The season-long mystery is built up extremely well, once it gets started in earnest (around episode 6); assuming you're OK with the genre, there's a great balance most of the time between the extremely dark main mystery and the usually (but not always) lighter highschool case-of-the-week plots, and between the serious, character-driven dramatic scenes and the consistently funny, smart, witty repartee. It's clever, and often unexpected.

And then there's the final two episodes, which are astonishingly good, in how they draw together the entire season, surprising while making perfect sense, and covering a wide range of tones and styles - moving and disturbing in the penultimate episode, through to outright thriller in the finale. I honestly think they a good-enough two-part finale to feel at home (quality-wise) on almost any TV show, while also being unmistakably Veronica Mars in style (even though both are stylistic novelties for the show).


Anyway, the show may never have hit the same heights in its later episodes, and it's easily forgotten as a creature of its time - a sometimes-dated entry in a low-brow, easily-mocked genre. But on review, I think it genuinely stands comparison with the other great TV shows of its era, and deserves to be remembered more often.

(it should also go without saying that Kristen Bell is a revelation in the title role)


Anyway, season 4's coming out next year some time, so now's the time to catch up, if you haven't seen it already...




*the original first scene, which introduces the character and the scenario, was cut for TV transmission because it was 'too dark' (what did they expect!?). It's restored in some DVD versions, apparently, but may or may not be present on streaming or pirated versions. It's a bit cheesy - as you'd expect from a scene-setting intro to an ironic neo-noir - and it isn't strictly necessary, but it's a much better start to the episode and show than the 'random scene' approach adopted by the network.

[Arzena]

Chasm City by Alisdair Reynolds audio book. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders