Chris Hadfield’s Music Video of “Space Oddity”

At this point, Hadfield is definitely living the filker power fantasy.

Here’s a video put together by him and his brother, which apparently tickled the heck out of David Bowie.

Note the actually-pretty-daring stunt with the guitar. Wouldn’t have been pretty to kill your guitar when you’re up in space. It’s probably not the first time anybody in space has sung the song (a lot of astronauts and cosmonauts sing and play), but it’s definitely the most stylish!

How to Write a Novel, 1901

Gutenberg has a nice little 1901 book called How to Write a Novel, by Anonymous. He helpfully takes most of his material from interviews with various Victorian and Edwardian authors, mostly the genre kind, and includes “stories of other worlds” and “the supernatural” in his survey. A fair number of one’s sworn enemies from English class also show a human writerly face. There’s also an interesting section on short stories versus novels.

Anyway, the really fascinating bit is at the end, where Poe describes how he got the idea for “The Raven,” and makes it clear that he was in no way a poet who wrote on inspiration, but rather a construct-y type poet as well as a short story writer. He sounds like a Nashville songwriter, honestly. (And that’s not a bad thing.)

Hurray! A New St. Albert the Great Translation!

This is great! Look at this beautiful new scholarly translation of St. Albert the Great’s book on the Valiant Woman chapter of Proverbs!

Seriously, it needs to have more exposure, and having Dominican scholars do it is particularly fitting and cool. You WILL ENJOY reading this book. You will remember its points and find them useful. And there are pirates.

Also, you can buy the paperback now on Amazon’s CreateSpace, or on Amazon.

You can also buy the Kindle edition.

And yes, it’s kinda sad not to have had the chance to finish my own translation, but them’s the breaks in scholarly life and publishing. And yeah, probably God’s will to have somebodies better qualified take on the job.

Anyway, it’s a sweet, sweet book and a pretty loving medieval Scholastic take on us ladies and the Church, so take a look! If you don’t have a Mother’s Day present yet, you can stick this on Mom’s Kindle!

Also, there are pirates.

Bede on Anglo-Saxon Spinning

“And her fingers,” it says, “have taken hold of the spindle.” (Proverbs 31:19) Women are accustomed to holding the spindle in the right hand, and to hold the distaff in the left. For the wool is wrapped around the distaff, guiding a thread away from it, so that it lets it cross over onto the spindle when being spun. But often in the Scriptures, the right hand signifies everlasting life, and the left the gifts of God in the present: wealth in business, of course; temporal peace; bodily safety; as well as knowledge of the Scriptures and learning of the heavenly sacraments. When we gain these and similar good things from God, giving them bountifully, we carry them in the left hand like wool wrapped onto a distaff. But on the other hand, when we begin to practice in these things in a wholesome way, for love of heavenly things, then we pull the wool of the Spotless Lamb across from the distaff onto the spindle, from the left hand to the right. For from the gifts of Our Redeemer, from the pattern of His works, we make a “robe” ["stolam"] (Mk. 16:5) of heavenly glory for ourselves, and a “wedding garment” (Mt. 22:11-12) of charity.

For also, the “fingers” which are said to take hold “of the spindle” insinuate that same intention of discretion by which everything is to be done. Doubtless on this account — because none of the many members of our bodies are as pulled in different directions by the joints, or as suitable for bending, as the “fingers.” Therefore, everyone can say truthfully with the apostle, “But our turning [conversatio] is toward heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Phil. 3:20) Certainly her right hand’s “fingers” are to take hold “of the spindle” because she has learned to labor for eternal goods with attentive discretion. And “have taken hold” is well said, so that the more energetic one is commended; we must take the prizes with the Lord, for the sake of what is certain in this uncertain life, with as much eagerness and as much speed [as we can]. But what the “valiant woman” — that is, Holy Church, or any perfected soul — may have worked with the intellectual spindle, will be disclosed subsequently.

More stuff from Bede’s commentary on the Book of Proverbs, and specifically from the section called The Little Book of the Valiant Woman.

The words used here are “fusus” (spindle), “colus” (distaff), and “filea” (thread, yarn).

Castle Computer Game Plagiarism??

Okay… maybe it’s just an in-joke… but in the visual clues for the new hidden object tie-in computer game, Castle: Never Judge a Book by Its Cover, bookblogger and local newspaper reviewer “Jenny on the Book” has one of her book reviews quoted in full as the text of a fake book review by a game character. (Actually, two different ones.) And I guess it’s technically not plagiarism, since they include the entire text of this review, right down to the URL for imstilljennyonthebook.blogspot.com.

This is particularly weird since the game character/book reviewer is a guy with a wife, and the text of the review talks about the reviewer’s life as a woman with a husband. Yeah. Also, the game demands that the review be scathing, while the actual text they use is kind and flattering.

Soooooo why are they ripping off this blogger? Laziness? Inability to look up the text of “Lorem ipsum”?

And no, “Jenny on the Book” is not listed in the game’s credits.

Btw, the game also rips off the text of Hyperion’s copyright notices from the inside of their books, which is amusing because the Castle “Nikki Heat” tie-in novels are not published by Hyperion. Tactless, guys.

Fr. Z Sez “Vote for the Sisterz!”

Fr. Z notes that The American Bible Challenge gameshow has introduced a “fan favorite” award. Like all the other awards in the gameshow, this involves _money_ donated to the charity of the group’s choice. The Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist are a group of highly educated, smart, learned Dominican sisters who teach at schools and preach the Gospel in works and words. They were founded back in the Eighties and Nineties by three experienced Dominicans who amicably were allowed to leave their own order and community to start a new one, believing that God wished them to do so. Their complete trust in God’s will has been rewarded with incredible growth, with hundreds of novices.

However, all this growth and newness means that practically every spare bit of money earned or donated is spent on new mouths to feed and teach, and there’s not much in the way of savings or endowment yet.

A vote for the Sisters is a vote to support the older sisters in their old age!

So vote every day!

The Smartest Guy in the Room

Fighter pilots tend to be pretty brainy (though they only seem to get good grades consistently when it’s a competition or whenever forced to), and the elder President Bush and Mrs. Bush both always struck me as smart, so this doesn’t surprise me.

The bit where he predicted each person’s argument is hilarious, although of course a lot of people probably want to do that during long boring meetings that rehash old hash!

Still, it would seem that life does imitate West Wing occasionally. Just not in a Democratic White House. Heh.

Biology Is Wealth

Someone we know MAY ALREADY HAVE WON a brand new bouncing baby boy!

Congratulations to Foxfier and her awesome husband, for another addition to your happy fannish family!

Hurtado’s Law of Intrigue

From the comment box on this post:

“….”intriguing” doesn’t necessarily mean valid or persuasive. We need evidence to make a suggestion persuasive….”

Now There’s a Source of Cultural Misunderstanding.

In Latin, it turns out that “amens” means a person without reason or mind, someone who does things for no reason, or an idiot in the classical sense. We still have a related word, “dementia,” which is the condition of a “demens,” a person who acts against reason and the mind while sure that he is still acting reasonably, much like an insane person. (Although “insanus” is yet another concept.)

This may be why so many authors in the Roman Empire who wrote against Christians would emphasize how they were not acting reasonably — purposeful punning on important concepts.

Anyway, there are lots of interesting things in The Handbook of Latin Synonymes by Doederlein, translated by H.H. Arnold. And yes, he did spell it “synonymes.”

The Uncanny Valley of Food

Seaweed slaw, made with curly Korean seaweed, cole slaw dressing and little carrot wedges.

It just wasn’t right. Tasted okay, looked okay, went down okay. But somehow, the whole thing together was just not right. And I’m pretty open to new foods, but that one just disgusted me. It must be the uncanny valley effect, because otherwise there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.

The Venerable Bede on Spiritual Depression

On Proverbs 31:6-7

“Give strong drink to those who are sad,” etc. “Let them drink and forget their want, and remember their sorrow no more.” He calls the consolation of supernal divine wisdom “strong drink” and “wine” in this place. For it is exhibited in their hearts that they flee to the lowest things to be consoled; and whatever occurs in the present, they bear alone, “bitter in mind,” for they do not yet see the celestial joys by sticking to them with their whole mind. They are together with him who said, “My soul refused [negavit] to be comforted; I remembered God, and was delighted….” (Ps. 76:3-4/Ps. 77:2-3, Vetera Latina)

Likewise, “Give strong drink to those who are sad, and wine to those who are bitter in mind,” etc. For those who are depressed by sadness and grief for an abundance of old deeds, pour out copiously the cheerfulness [jocunditatem] of spiritual knowledge, just like the wine which “cheers the human heart.” (Ps. 103:15/Ps. 104:15; cf. Sir. 40:20) And with the words of salvation, warm back to life from their hangover [crapula] those like this, lest they should be swallowed up by a more abundant sorrow, overwhelmed by the continualness of their grief or by lethal desperation.

Singing It in the Right Key

Yes, Americans can sing along with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” If you pitch it in the right key.

Boston sings loudly and proudly at a hockey game.

Bought a Rice Cooker

It was on clearance at Walmart for a little less than $12.00. So my love of automatic gadgets which appear in anime overcame my extreme cheapness. The good bit about a rice cooker is that it makes proper Japanese rice without having to stand over the stove, stops cooking it exactly when it’s done, and holds it warm until you’re ready to eat it. (Thus saving Japanese culture.) You can also cook “hot springs eggs” and other treats in the rice cooker, if you know the right settings.

There’s also a vegetable steamer that comes with, and a rice paddle for getting the rice out, and a measuring cup, and a removable pot for the rice with the water measurements right on the side.

Made jasmine rice to go with my Indian food tonight. Very good. (Although really, I need to get short-grained Japanese rice, like Calrose, to get the full value.) The steaming done by the rice cooker definitely sucks out a lot of water from your rice. Some of the jasmine rice actually ended up almost crispy. Apparently you’re supposed to use more water for a long-grained rice like jasmine rice, or for a thick rice like brown rice or wild rice.