Tuesday, 31 January 2017
Yom - "On the Endless Road" (Songs for the Old Man, 2015)
Sad meandering saxophone. Reminded me a bit of Etienne Jaumet, though it lacks those energetic speedups. Which is not a bad thing, just different.
Just listened to the whole album. Pretty nice.
Le Silence de l'exode
This though has a lot more energy, follows a flow of building fast notes, only then to slow down to the twanging of a jazzy contrabass.
Just listened to the whole album. Pretty nice.
Le Silence de l'exode
This though has a lot more energy, follows a flow of building fast notes, only then to slow down to the twanging of a jazzy contrabass.
Benjamin Franklin - writing exercises
Step One: Find writing you would like to emulate.
Step Two: Make short notes about the view or opinion of each sentence.
Step Three: Wait a few days, and then write a piece only using your notes on each sentence.
Step Four: Go back and read the original writing selection you chose and compare it to the writing you did.
Step Five: Find any faults, and correct them.
He started by taking one of the essays and jotting down a note for each sentence indicating the sentiment it contained. He then put his notes aside for a few days and then by using his notes recreated the essay in his own words. Then he compared his version to the original and made corrections. Essay by essay he could see his approach improving his skills and in some small ways he felt his expression might even be better than the original. These glimmers of erudition gave him hope.
Despite the progress Ben felt he needed more. He wanted to expand his vocabulary. What better way then than to rewrite an essay’s prose in verse. Again he would start with notes expressing the sentiment of each sentence but this time he wrote his version in verse. It forced him to add variety and creativity. After a few days he’d forget the original prose and so would then take his verse and use it to rewrite the essay. Again he made a comparison, made corrections and learned by doing.
I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the language.
Step Two: Make short notes about the view or opinion of each sentence.
Step Three: Wait a few days, and then write a piece only using your notes on each sentence.
Step Four: Go back and read the original writing selection you chose and compare it to the writing you did.
Step Five: Find any faults, and correct them.
He started by taking one of the essays and jotting down a note for each sentence indicating the sentiment it contained. He then put his notes aside for a few days and then by using his notes recreated the essay in his own words. Then he compared his version to the original and made corrections. Essay by essay he could see his approach improving his skills and in some small ways he felt his expression might even be better than the original. These glimmers of erudition gave him hope.
Despite the progress Ben felt he needed more. He wanted to expand his vocabulary. What better way then than to rewrite an essay’s prose in verse. Again he would start with notes expressing the sentiment of each sentence but this time he wrote his version in verse. It forced him to add variety and creativity. After a few days he’d forget the original prose and so would then take his verse and use it to rewrite the essay. Again he made a comparison, made corrections and learned by doing.
I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the language.
Sunday, 29 January 2017
N. K. Jemisin - "The Fifth Season"
Amazing book about an Earth gone rogue and humanity try to survive whenever a Season, brought about by volcanos, tectonic activity, ... occurs. Three timelines of the same person, a rogga, who can sess (feel and influence) such activity, necessary in that volatile world, but feared by all the 'stills', the "normal" people who cannot feel anything.
Her trip in search of her husband (to kill him, for out of fear he killed their child), her own childhood, her trip to a sort of freedom with a ten-ringer from the Fulcrum...
Amazing story, well written. A fantasy page turner of the best kind.
"Let's start with the end of the world, why don't we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.
First, a personal ending. There is a thing she will think over and over in the days to come, as she imagines how her son died and tries to make sense of something so innately senseless. She will cover Uche's broken little body with a blanket - except his face, because he is afraid of the dark - and she will sit beside it numb, and she will pay no attention to the world that is ending outside. The world has already ended within her, and neither ending is for the first time. She's old hat at this by now.
What she thinks then, and thereafter, is: But he was free.
And it is her bitter, weary self that answers this almost question every time her bewildered, shocked self manages to produce it:
He wasn't. Not really. But now he will be."
Her trip in search of her husband (to kill him, for out of fear he killed their child), her own childhood, her trip to a sort of freedom with a ten-ringer from the Fulcrum...
Amazing story, well written. A fantasy page turner of the best kind.
"Let's start with the end of the world, why don't we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.
First, a personal ending. There is a thing she will think over and over in the days to come, as she imagines how her son died and tries to make sense of something so innately senseless. She will cover Uche's broken little body with a blanket - except his face, because he is afraid of the dark - and she will sit beside it numb, and she will pay no attention to the world that is ending outside. The world has already ended within her, and neither ending is for the first time. She's old hat at this by now.
What she thinks then, and thereafter, is: But he was free.
And it is her bitter, weary self that answers this almost question every time her bewildered, shocked self manages to produce it:
He wasn't. Not really. But now he will be."
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