lightcastle

We are the stories we tell, or so I am often inclined to think.

In honor of Women's History Month in the USA, Aphra Behn collects stories of women's history that don't get told nearly often enough.

Neal Gabler and Bill Moyers discuss how the stories we tell about politicians in the US makes us disappointed in the reality. "Movies are clean; democracy is a mess."

The American Civil War was one of the first wars documented by the new technology of photography. The Atlantic has gathers the places, the people, and finally the 3-D stereographs from the war.

Explaining scientific concepts in clear language is much harder than most people think. Could you answer the question What is flame? in a way an 11 year old would understand while still being scientifically accurate?

And finally, (mostly unrelated) Nathan Fillion excels at goofy sincerity.

I knew there was a rather long tradition of doing so, but had never heard of Junias before.

Junias is a character in some translations of the Bible.

More specifically, he’s a character invented by translators and inserted into the Bible. He’s a made-up person with a made-up name.

Junias never existed. And Junias’ name never existed.

But despite that, you can read the non-existent name of this non-existent person right there in the Bible — provided you have the right Bible. Or, rather, provided you have the wrong one.

Seems the problem was that in that part of the Bible, Paul was greeting important people.

In the long list of people Paul greets at the end of his letter to the Romans, he gives special notice to the husband and wife evangelical team of Andronicus and Junia (Rom. 16:6-7), whom he calls “my kindred” (suggeneis mou). … The supreme accolade comes when he calls them “outstanding among the emissaries.”

[...]

But sometime in the Middle Ages, apparently before the ninth century, it was decided that a woman apostle was unthinkable. This offended the male monopoly of church offices and honors that had grown up by that time, so Junia had to be erased from history. It took only a little smudging to do this. Paul uses her Greek name, Iounia, in the accusative case, Iounian. A mere change in accent markings (a circumflex over the last vowel) would make it the accusative form of a hypothetical male name, Iounias. But there is one problem here. “Junias” is only a hypothetical name — it never occurs in all the ancient literature and inscriptions — whereas Iounia is a common name, occurring hundreds of times.

It's been a while since I've done this, but since I probably will be throwing the World's Most Civilized Football Party this year, I thought I should.

In the NFC we have the Saints vs the 49ers today. Tomorrow we have the Packers vs the Giants.

In both cases we have a very human symbol against a larger than life one. The 49ers as the grizzled explorers/pioneers, and the Packers as simple blue color men of dignity. The Saints, of course, have Holy Beings Touched By God, while the Giants are major players in numerous myths across the globe.

Over in the AFC, we have a similar situation, but with animals swapped in for mythic beings. The Patriots (human archetype) vs the Broncos (mighty stallions with many mythic connotations) and the Texans (human archetype) vs the Ravens (classic trickster and/or death symbol).

That said, what makes for the most interesting matchups down the road? Obviously, we could root for human/mythic all the way down the line, in which case I'd like Packers/Saints and Patriots/Ravens, followed by Saints/Patriots as a battle of Church and State.

Another option is all human, in which case I'd like 49ers/Texans I think, as the battle of Frontier archetypes. (Although Packers/Texans as Urban vs Rural works pretty well, too.)

All mythic leads to some interesting possibilities, but Ravens definitely have to be the AFC representative, then, due to the better mythic history. Ravens/Saints seems the most interesting mythically there.

You could also do all human semi final on one side, all mythic on the other, in which case I'd still want Saints/Patriots as your final.

As already mentioned (and repeated below), I am the feature teller this Monday. I'm pretty sure I'm telling the Devil at the Crossroads, and possibly something involving a Dragon and 5-coloured Silk. Anyone have any suggestions for something else I should tell?

The third evening of Montreal's bilingual storytelling Slam is this Monday!

http://www.documentia.ca/slamtastique/?p=48

Join us for our third evening of SLAMTelling
Joignez-nous pour notre troisième soirée de Conte de Slam!

Shaika Cafe
5526 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, Quebec
Deuxieme lundi de chaque mois, 7pm // Second Monday of each month, 7pm
Prochain Slam: 12 décembre 2011
Next event: December 12th 2011

Cinq juges, cinq minutes, des contes incroyables! (lisez les regles)
Five judges, five minutes, incredible storytelling! (read the rules)

Conteur invité / Featured Teller: Laurent Castellucci

Sadly, the amount of legal complexity to ship a piece of bone across the border is a bit much, and so I will not be able to send s00j something to paint on during Burning Man. At this point, it's over triple digits, and that's if I don't get fined for breaking the law.

This makes me sad, as I did spend a couple of days finding a butcher who could provide, and since I was able to actually have it be something personal.

She took the bone of the shoulder of mutton--the big fat blade-bone--and she looked at the wonderful marks on it, and she threw more wood on the fire, and she made a Magic. She made the First Singing Magic in the world.

-- The Cat That Walked By Himself

Brought on by a discussion on another blog, I've been thinking about narrative viewpoint and whether I'm just viewing this from a lens of too much male privilege.

Do you assume that in a story you are *meant* to empathize/identify with the main character/protagonist. Please note that I am not saying you *will*. Do you go into a story and when it becomes clear the story is about some central character, assume that you are meant to be identifying with this character somewhat? Or do you think authors/filmmakers do not intend this to be the case?