Ha! So true...

In other news, now that The Gothic Novel has reached it's stunning conclusion* I've begun a new genre-parodying e-novel.

This one takes on the historical-mystery-thriller genre, which I both love to hate and hate to love.

I hate the dumbed-down scholarship and the way they put wild conjecture on the level with actual fact so that they're indistinguishable to the average reader (something scholars are quite capable of doing on their own without the help of fiction). I get annoyed with the way the protagonist, always a supposed genius in his/her field, will randomly forget hugely important information when convinient for building suspense**

But many of the genre's silly conventions appeal to me. I like the location-hoping, where every clue has to be visited in person at some famed historical site. I like the idea that great discoveries are just sitting there in plain sight, waiting for some one to accidentally figure them out. And I like an academic protagonist whose superpower is obscure knowledge. Especially, I like the character of the distinguished British gentleman with the sparkling wit and endless knowledge to turns out to be evil, usually.

The first chapter is currently underway. Stay tuned for...

When mild-mannered professor Nick Harris accepts a job at small college in the Midwest, he doesn’t expect anything more challenging than trying to interest a room full of teenagers in Early Modern history. But St. Mary Francis College holds the key to a centuries-old secret so powerful, so shocking, that the quest to unlock it sends Nick racing across the globe. He soon discovers that he’s not the only seeker interested in ancient truths. There are others following the same path, and some seem willing to kill to see that Nick never makes it to the end...

*I initially wrote "is done" in place of "has reached it's stunning conclusion," and whenever I do that (replace a simple word with a more hyperbolic statement) I imagine Winona Rider in Beetlejuice, writing her suicide note. "I am alone [scrtach scrtach] I am utterly alone. By the time you read this, I will be gone, having jumped [scratch scratch] having plummeted..." Just thought I'd share that. Incidentally, I learned the meaning of "utterly" from that scene.

**Interred with their Bones, which I'd otherwise classify as "pretty-not-bad," provides a particularly irritating example, in which the heroine totally forgets about Cardenio and then, when the plot requires it, it all "Oh, right! Shakespeare wrote some lost plays!"

Bastille Day

Liberté, égalité, fraternité!
Ça ira

Is It Just Me...

...Or is Sir Walter Raleigh giving me the "Pattinson Eye" in this portrait?



Aw, and look, he's got his kid doing it too:



Is that the look that got Bess Throckmorton in to bed?



Liz and her ermine are Not Amused.

Best Thing Ever?

I think so...



From The Hope Chest, which posts scans of old newspaper articles. Vampires seems to be a recurring theme. Also a lot of the articles seem to be from the Chicago Tribune. Represent.

(Ignore the site's comments about Chicago drivers. We are the only people in this country who know how to drive. Everyone else is wrong).

19th Century Illustrations of Dinosaurs

Henry de la Beche, Duria Antiquior

(If you look closely, you can see that many of the dinosaurs are pooping.)



And here's what they looked like when not eating each other:
Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkings, Teleo, Ichthio and Plesiosaurus



I love how sneaky this one looks:
Megalosaurus



Iguanodon

This one doubled as a lovely spot for dinner

Who Hasn't?

If you have ever yearned to own a Victorian shopfront, an old tin chapel, or a box of glass eyes (assorted colours), then an auction in the Forest of Dean could be too tempting to pass over.

Victorian Museum Auction

Doodles

In addition to being my birthday, Thursday was also National Doodle Day, which means I get to enjoy a little glimpse into the minds of celebrities and semi-celebrities, and it doesn't feel like weird fame gawking because it's all for a good cause.

My favorites are Steve Martin's ode to the famous arrow gag which my grad school professor would disown me for not mentioning first appeared in 1607 in Francis Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning Pestle:




And this one, by Cat Mihos, who I guess works for Neil Gaiman in some capacity:

Got 8 Minutes?

Why not spend them enjoying this:



A briefing on American imperialism delivered in the soothing, sexy voice of Viggo Mortensen.

Mmmmm... Viggo...

Daycare

Wondermark never fails to amuse.

I've suggested several times that we draw upon the childcare expertise of Victoria orphanages and put the children to sleep with bottles of gin and water.

Ada Lovelace Day (3/24/09)

This is probably the last BlogClassic, since most of the rest is just stuff I wrote in order to fulfill my goal of writing something everyday (I know, this is the crap that I actually put thought into). I debated whether or not to post this, since its timeliness has passed, but it was the first 'blog about something day' that I participated in with my shiny new (now old) blog, so it's kind of historic.

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815, London – 27 November 1852, Marylebone, London), born Augusta Ada Byron, was the only legitimate child of George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron. She is widely known in modern times simply as Ada Lovelace.

She is mainly known for having written a description of Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine. She is today appreciated as the "first programmer" since she was writing programs—that is, manipulating symbols according to rules—for a machine that Babbage had not yet built. She also foresaw the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching while others, including Babbage himself, focused only on these capabilities.

(thanks, Wikipedia!)

So, did you know that today (that it, March 24th) is (was) Ada Lovelace Day?

I sure didn’t until a few minutes ago, which makes me sad because if I’d known about it before the children left I’d have made it a “teaching moment” (yes, I do kind of hate myself for using that phrase). Also pretty sad is the fact that I wouldn’t even know who Lovelace was if I hadn’t read The Difference Engine.

Here’s a little something about me: I really like computers. Not just what they do, and what they let us do (which should be pretty obvious ‘cause hey, blog), but how they work. I like the concept of them, I like to know about them. I like the language of computer programming.

Why did nothing ever come of that interest? It might have a little something to do with the fact that, despite being an honors/AP student back in the day, I was expressly discouraged from taking any computer science classes on more than one occasion. Because they’re hard. Because I was more of a creative type. There was no explicit sexism, just the very clear suggestion that I was the wrong kind of nerd for that sort of thing. But I wonder, did boys who liked English and music and art get the same advice? If they didn’t, it’s messed up. Of course, it’s pretty messed up if they did, too.

So, anyway, here’s my contribution to the day.

A Woman in Technology I Admire:

Mary Lou Jepsen (born 1965) was the founding chief technology officer of One Laptop per Child (OLPC), an organization whose mission is to deliver low-cost, mesh-networked laptops en masse to children in developing countries. For her work in creating the laptop Time Magazine named her to its 2008 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

(thanks again, Wikipedia)