Posts by aaron@hilltown.studio
(DIR) Post #AhxtxrK43lTsPDp6qu by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-03-27T23:09:07Z
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I guess I should get some ink, a brayer, some paper, and a baren.
(DIR) Post #AhxtxsnsYOvKzymQxk by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-04-30T23:31:20Z
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Okay, finally got around to buying ink and stuff to print this. I made two prints, trying to use all the ink I had rolled out. There are some things I think I will do differently for the next time, but overall I'm pleased with this first result. Final title: Triple Mushmoon#linocut
(DIR) Post #AhypvTeItvuNkIrJLc by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-01T20:44:52Z
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Thinking to liveblog my way through Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood, of which I know very little, as a means of both taking notes and guessing where things are going. We’ll see if I can’t keep this up.Currently I have just started Part 2, so I’m not far into the work just yet.
(DIR) Post #AhypvV8TNFdQM9yv0i by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-01T20:50:40Z
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Stephen and Christian are the sons of aging George Huxley, who has been investigating the strangeness of Ryhope Wood for years, a quest that ultimately killed him. They themselves had gone to war, but Christian returned to their childhood home while Stephen convalesced some years in France. Stephen comments about his father’s fascination with the Wood, and we come to understand that it gives birth to manifestations of primeval myths.
(DIR) Post #AhypvWFFFYe7nS9qCm by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-01T20:56:25Z
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First George, and later Christian, venture into the Wood, where they can interact with these mythical beings, making this something of a portal fantasy. Portal fantasies often deal with people trying to escape some aspect of their lives, but this isn’t the simplest explanation here.By the end of Part 1, Stephen has accepted the idea that the Wood can produce a version of primeval myths attenuated by the observer, just before Christian disappears into the woods.
(DIR) Post #AhypvXKFESEv9FVLdY by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-01T20:59:41Z
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Part 2 opens with Stephen recounting a particular appearance of a “mythago” or mythical imago, who sails in on a ghostly ship and delivers an oak leaf bearing a C in the shape of a boar’s head. This is clearly intended to be Christian, though he is unrecognizable to Stephen. It seems to me that Christian has become a mythago himself.
(DIR) Post #AhypvYG1lcSc2SXUhc by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-02T11:57:54Z
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So far in Part 2, we don't get any confirmation of Christian's fate, but midway through this Part, we learn that he's already been gone for 9 months. In the intervening time, two other things occur: 1) a mythago the brothers briefly compare with Boudica, though she is far older than that, probably, appears to Steven (we get his name more often here, spelled with a V), and she begins coming around the house regularly; 2) Steven flies over the wood in a chartered plane.
(DIR) Post #AhypvZ7CZuzkhNPxaK by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-02T12:02:31Z
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The Boudica figure calls herself Guiwenneth, and a reason she compares with Boudica in the first place ends up being because she refers to certain technologies she encounters as her word for Roman. Whether this is imprinted by the men who instantiated her, a result of the mythology soup that coalesces in the Wood, or was original to Guiwenneth herself is unclear. Perhaps it's all three.
(DIR) Post #AhypvZwxTUOZHtdIG0 by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-02T12:07:37Z
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In any case, an instance of this Guiwenneth figure has appeared to all three (or four) of the men who have so far associated with the Wood. First to George (and possibly to his friend and assistant, Winn-Jones), then to Christian, and now to Steven. The only woman so far to have seen her was George's wife, an event that seems to have driven her to death. The overriding question for them is: whose mythago is Guiwenneth? That is, from whose mythical subconscious did she emerge?
(DIR) Post #AhypvaXpGPsz8Esjiq by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-02T12:11:27Z
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This is a central question because George's theory is that the Wood manifests instances of ideal mythical figures from the subconscious of those who are nearby. We know that the instance of Guiwenneth that Christian interacted with died and was buried on the grounds of their estate, well outside the bound of the Wood. George's instance seems to have faded, but we know nothing of her fate since he has removed and hidden or destroyed any notes concerning her.
(DIR) Post #AhypvbCEqADD9Zn0iG by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-02T12:15:10Z
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The second thing that happens is that Steven sees a plane flying overhead and gets the idea to hire the plane for aerial photography above the Wood. We meet Keeton, a scarred RAF captain who is surveying the area and agrees perhaps too readily to Steven's proposal. The Wood defends itself vigorously, but they get pictures nonetheless, some showing blurry figures of mythagos and even a stone building in the Wood.Turns out Keeton was looking for this very place.
(DIR) Post #AjYScwzIUoSAMYnr3Q by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-07-03T13:28:05Z
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@futurebird @InayaShujaat This one feels connected to yesterday's thread, particularly strains of "Your experience doesn't match my experience, so your experience must be wrong" or "I literally can't relate to someone who has or wants a different experience than I had." We end up just paying forward any and all trauma we suffered, instead of thinking about ways to make that cycle stop.
(DIR) Post #AkO7IP39yEVD7w8Ngu by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-07-28T11:34:07Z
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@futurebird So much this. I have a lawn, which came with the house I bought. I'm planning to integrate microclover, which attracts pollinators, and I otherwise have and keep lots of different kinds of flowering plants around, including the whole patch of wildflowers I planted. The only pest service I use is for termites.
(DIR) Post #AnEEhtLSJuk8D90ZAO by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-10-21T10:46:24Z
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@futurebird @streetsblognyc I've asked some of the social media people my org in the fairly recent past why we're still on Twitter, and they still insist it's the place they have to be to reach people. I think from a corporate IT policy perspective, they wouldn't really know *how* to think about a Fediverse app they ran themselves.
(DIR) Post #AnQgUkVjZFCajcJbDU by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-10-27T10:54:17Z
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@futurebird @datarama These days I primarily read translated works (usually international literature courtesy of Archipelago Books, or epics, etc.), with dalliances elsewhere, and I am haunted by this. The most I can manage in another language is reading Spanish language literature, of which I grasp maybe 80% of the story and approximately 0% of the wordplay.
(DIR) Post #AnSuBooF9HcKErlB32 by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-10-28T12:37:09Z
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@futurebird Mood.But there are days that make me want to renounce my field entirely, and entire technologies I'm shying away from.
(DIR) Post #AoGRbXapUuAPZXRQxs by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-11-21T10:12:26Z
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@futurebird My dogs will be upset because it means fewer/shorter walks but surely they will understand when I explain … and no, they’ve wandered off.Anyway I am celebrating and hoping for more.
(DIR) Post #AoIcfG6Fxx2CHx2JoO by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-11-22T11:25:47Z
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@futurebird I voted "derivative and rates of change" mostly because when I got to calculus in college, nobody was explaining what the hell we were doing. I understand it better now (thanks, Khan Academy!) but could have used some down-to-earth talk about what this stuff was covering. Sadly, because I didn't grasp it in time, I failed out of the engineering program I started in. Maybe for the best, but I still think about it.
(DIR) Post #AodT58tjlG8o45nX2u by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-12-02T12:47:20Z
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@futurebird @SKleefeld Indeed they love "liberal tears". It's a bully's stance, of course. And part of the reason they act that way is because at least some of them can't countenance the idea that the liberals they are bullying are actually genuine in their beliefs. That's also why there's so much projection on the right: they accuse liberals of doing things they are doing because that's the way they assume people act.Source: grew up in it.
(DIR) Post #Aq6jvcrXRFEXy2li3k by aaron@hilltown.studio
2025-01-15T13:34:27Z
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@foone I have fond memories of playing a DOS version of Family Feud on my grandfather's Tandy 1000. One time my sister and I were playing and neither of us could figure out any additional answers, so the game just kept passing back and forth between us. Maybe I should have looked for data files for the surveys!