Category Archives: art

What Are the Óðs?

Posted on February 19, 2025 by JE

I was thinking the other day about Hengist and Horsa, the two Saxon chieftains/gangsters who show up to assist and then overpower the usurper Vortigern in the run-up to King Arthur’s origin story. Horsa (Horsus in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Latin) … Continue reading →

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Worlds on Worlds Are Rolling Ever…

Posted on February 18, 2025 by JE

I realized this weekend that one of the pleasures of inventing a Martian language was coining new names for all the planets. (Including ones that don’t really exist, like Vulcan, Antichthon, and the Lost Planet that was once supposed to … Continue reading →

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Fire Up the Gat Signal!

Posted on February 18, 2025 by JE

Typos of the day, from trying to type Batgirl in a hurry on a small screen: Vatgirl and Gatgirl. Both of these sound like they belong to the Legion of Regrettable Supervillains.

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I’m Going to Mars

Posted on February 13, 2025 by JE

I was posting on a corporate social media site this AM and I blithely wrote something like, “My New Year’s resolution this year is to blog more and post on corporate social media less.” This was kind of a lie, … Continue reading →

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Don’t Myth Out

Posted on January 25, 2025 by JE

I’ve been looking forward to John Wiswell‘s Wearing the Lion since I heard about it, and even more so now that I’ve seen more work by the illustrator, Tyler Miles Lockett. Bold, colorful, imaginative stuff.

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Longish, Re Dilvish

Posted on January 23, 2025 by JE

Roger Zelazny was unquestionably one of the great American fantasists of the 20th century. That’s not to say he was perfect. His woman characters were often 2-dimensional, and he paired an unwillingness to work with an outline (“Trust your demon” … Continue reading →

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Canticle or CANicle?

Posted on January 11, 2025 by JE

As a kid, I was very creeped out by this Bantam cover of Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz when I found it on my parents’ bookshelf. I was already reading sf, but somehow that didn’t seem to apply to this … Continue reading →

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Thrush to Judgement

Posted on July 3, 2024 by JE

I’ve been rereading Petronius’ Satyricon, to take my mind off the imminent death of democracy in America. It’s not working that well, because Trimalchio (the wealthy boor who is the anti-protagonist of his own episode in the novel) keeps reminding … Continue reading →

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Fair or Unfair?

Posted on November 5, 2023 by JE

In the course of an ultimately frustrating and pointless conversation online today, I found myself thinking of the multiple meanings of fair in English–at once, “light-skinned/light-haired”, “beautiful”, and “just, even-handed”. The meanings are so different that I wondered if they … Continue reading →

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Wearing the Mask

Posted on September 30, 2023 by JE

I’m rereading Seneca’s De Beneficiis, using Kaster’s shiny new OCT edition, and came across this crunchy line: hanc personam induisti: agenda est.—Seneca, De Beneficiis 2.17.2“You’ve put on this mask; you have to act out the part.” Seneca’s line is almost … Continue reading →

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