The City Who Fought - Anne McCaffrey & S. M. Stirling

The City Who Fought - Anne McCaffrey & S. M. Stirling

Goodreads

Google summary:

. . . a 1993 science fiction novel, part of the "Brainships" series, about a "shellperson" (a disembodied brain) named Simeon who runs a space station and must use his hobby of wargaming to defend it and refugees from brutal pirates. The story follows Simeon and his new, strong-willed human partner, Channa Hap, as they work together to save the station and its inhabitants from the invading Kolnari.

Not the greatest book, but the exploration of the psychological aspects of the characters in the middle section was pretty good. There is a weak attempt at fitting Faster-Than-Light (FTL) travel with local space travel, but why do you need cold-sleep if you have FTL? Yeah, and when you start looking at tactics, you really need details on how this flavor of FTL works, and that is pretty much completely missing. Never mind, all the important characters and important action are going on on the space station.

Some items that caught my eye:

Page 164 paragraph 3 new-to-me word: sicatooth - "... and I want you to start pulling together those tasty goods we're going to use to tempt the ... sicatooth ." Google can't find it. I suspect it means something like a wolf-like attacker, a pirate, for instance.

Page 184 new-to-me word: antiphonally - in a manner characterized by the alternation of musical parts in a responsive manner between two groups of singers or musicians

Page 184 also a sex scene without using any sexual terms. Clever.

Page 202 paragraph 6 - a new-to-me term: stranger'n - contraction of 'stranger than' I expect.

Page 203 paragraph 9 - new-to-me word: chatelaine - the mistress of a household or of a large establishment

Page 234 "lost her rag" - all the good people say it means she has lost her temper, but I like this explanation I found on English Language & Usage Stack Exchange

Men have always dismissed women who have lost their temper as losing their rags meaning they were only in a bad mood/short tempered because of their period.

Page 237 paragraph 3 - Another unknown word: precocity - it is just the noun version of the adjective 'precocious' which means 'exceptionally early in development or occurrence'.

Page 249 paragraph 10 - In the last sentence we get some clever invented slang from Joat, a renegade girl, describing crawling around in the station's maintenance access tunnels:  "Some of the places pinch grudly but they're in-able if you're sveltsome."

Page 276 paragraph 2 - Hebrides Suite. Hmm, there is The Hebrides, a concert overture that was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1830, but there is also Clare Grundman's Hebrides Suite (1962), a popular four-movement concert band work based on Scottish folk songs from the Hebrides Islands. 

Page 276 last paragraph - whipped Jersey - Jersey cow cream is so rich that you can thicken it with a few good shakes (as used on an Irish Coffee), and whip it in no time at all. - Foodie Pilgrim

Page 287 and Page 288 fragments of three poems

• Ode to Duty By William Wordsworth
• Ode on Solitude By Alexander Pope
• The Waste Places by James Stephens

Page 293 paragraph 8 - Carmina Burana could be a medieval collection of poetry or it might be the a cantata composed in 1935 and 1936 by Carl Orff. Video. Includes O Fortuna. I suspect the cantata is the correct one here.

Page 313 top, fragment of a poem - The Quest by Rudyard Kipling

Poetry

I have no use for most poetry, at least not the fancy kind, the high falutin' kind that uses esoteric words to talk about ephemeral concepts. Poetry that uses ordinary words, meaning words I know, and short lines that rhyme, like those by Rudyard Kipling or nursery rhymes are more my cup of tea. Poems like this one by JMSmith:

The Three Powers

Blooms come, they say, from April showers,
All else comes of the three powers,
Which I can name in a short list:
The purse, the pen, the pounding fist.
If the purse should aught require,
It can purchase, rent or hire,
All goods being to market brought,
All men on offer to be bought,
It can suborn, incentivize,
Pay fists to pound, pens to write lies.
The pen to enlist volunteers,
Fills hearts with lusts and heads with fears,
Sparks firestorms of righteous rage,
Plays now the pander, now the sage,
Coaxes the tight-tied purse to spill,
Cajoles the pounding fist to kill.
And very few can long can resist
Persuasion by the pounding fist,
So what brute force wants, it gets,
The toadying praise of scribbling wits,
The contents of the tight-tied purse,
These and much more it can coerce.
Sniff if you like the bright May flowers,
Slave you remain to these three powers,
Bought by the purse, by pen bewitched,
By pounding fist to hard toil hitched.

 

The Gods of the Copybook Headings - Repost

Copybook Headings
Doug Moreland - Topic

Reposting this because I'm in that kind of mood today.

I came across this Bayou Renaissance Man. Color me impressed. Here's the written version:

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Rudyard Kipling

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,

I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.

Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn

That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:

But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,

So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,

Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,

But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come

That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch.

They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.

They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.

So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.

They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.

But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life

(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)

Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

 

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,

And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true

That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—

There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,

And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

 Actual copybook headings here.

Abram Gannibal

Abram Gannibal

I am really starting to enjoy Biden's war on Europe. Every day we have another outstanding example of insane stupidity. Today we have the destruction of Puskin's statue in Kiev. RT reports:

A monument in the center of Kiev to the iconic 19th-century Russian poet Alexander Pushkin was demolished on Tuesday, according to co-founder of the “Decommunization. Ukraine” project Vadim Pozdnyakov.

Alexander Puskin lived in the 19th Century. He died like 75 years before the Communist Revolution in Russia, but he was a Russian and evidently that was enough to get him canceled.

But how much of a Russian was he?

His maternal great-grandfather was Major-General Abram Petrovich Gannibal, a nobleman of Cameroonian origin who was kidnapped from his homeland and raised in the Emperor's court household as his godson. 

Cameroon? You don't mean that country  . . . wait, just where is Cameroon anyway? Next door to Nigeria:

Cameroon

You're kidding, right? Nope:

Abram Petrovich Gannibal (1696 – 1781), was a Russian military engineer, general-in-chief, and nobleman of African origin. Kidnapped and enslaved as a child by Ottomans, Gannibal was traded to Russia and presented as a gift to Peter the Great, where he was freed, adopted and raised in the Emperor's court household as his godson.

 

Simple Simon

Simple Simon with the Pie Man - William Denslow 1902

The answer to another trivia question was Simple Simon. My daughter had never heard of him. How can that be? Have I failed to properly educate my kids? This is a catastrophe.

Just in case you too have never heard of this nursery rhyme, here it is in all its lyrical glory, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Simple Simon met a pieman,
Going to the fair;
Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
Let me taste your ware.
Says the pieman to Simple Simon,
Show me first your penny;
Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
Indeed I have not any.
Simple Simon went a-fishing,
For to catch a whale;
All the water he had got,
Was in his mother's pail.
Simple Simon went to look
If plums grew on a thistle;
He pricked his fingers very much,
Which made poor Simon whistle.
He went for water in a sieve
But soon it all fell through
And now poor Simple Simon
Bids you all adieu!

Simple Simon goes back at least to 1764.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Copybook Headings
Doug Moreland - Topic

I came across this Bayou Renaissance Man. Color me impressed. Here's the written version:

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Rudyard Kipling

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,

I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place.

Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn

That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:

But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,

So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,

Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,

But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come

That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch.

They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch.

They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings.

So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.

They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.

But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life

(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)

Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,

By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;

But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

 

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew,

And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true

That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four—

And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man—

There are only four things certain since Social Progress began:—

That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,

And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,

As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,

The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

 Actual copybook headings here.

Black Ram

Black Ram by Bryon Worthen

Reading The Mauritius Command by Patrick O'Brian (volume 4 in the series) I came across a verse and since I'm all about poetry these days (yeah, sure) and because it illustrates our propensity for silly behaviors and because it's amusing, I include it here along with the explanation. The story is set in the early 1800's and the English are at war with Napoleon, again.

Black Ram

Latin phrases translated:

• sedes libera means free seat
• francus bancus means free bench
• dum sola et casta fuerit means while the single and chaste

Iron Chink

Iaman reports from Vancouver B.C.:

This surprised me. My land lady, a Canadian born Chinese woman whose father was a Canadian WW2 hero has introduced me to a rich multi-ethnic community. She lent me a book of poems by Jim Wong Chu - Chinatown Ghosts. [Here's one Iaman recorded:]

Equal Opportunity - Jim Wong Chu 

In this book of poems I saw a picture of an "Iron Chink", a old heavy iron mechanical contraption.

 

Iron Chink

I thought "wow,  that's bold, someone's not worried about being called a racist". Deciding to check myself I googled "definition Chink"  google returned
"a narrow opening or crack, typically one that admits light."
What?
And then another definition, "A slight, metallic sound, as of coins rattling in a pocket."
Then saving my sanity Wikipedia returned details of what I thought of as a ethnic slur,  which led to an article about Salmon canneries:

"Afterwards, many workers were replaced or reallocated with the invention of the iron chink, a butchering machine said to replace up to 30 Chinese workers" 

 Iron Chink

1000s of pictures of  Iron Chink's 

I've been around enough to know it is best to judge a person on their own merits.   But being raised in white communities,  then as a 16 year old entering the nascent world of integrated military  I have seen my share of overt racism, and see how easy it is for the unthinking to rely on racism for a quick ego boost..
Now having inserted myself into the Chinese dominated culture of Burnaby  I wonder about living in a society that is overwhelmed by another culture.
Canada and China are of equal size yet China has 36 times the people, 1,300 Million vs  Canadas 36 Million.*
I experience a bit of this influx at the pools here, many times a lap lane will have 5 swimmers,  often all Chinese.  I do get a ego boost when swimming with the typically smaller chinese doing a breast stroke with their short arms,  No matter how quick and fit they are , I often lap them with my 10% longer reach doing a crawl.  Of course I am not swimming with >6'5" Olympic caliber Chinese swimmers.

*I thought two instances of 36 might be an error, so I checked. Turns out 36 squared is 1296, which is almost 1300.

Update September 2022 added caption

Galliambic

Catullus 63: recited in Latin & English Galliambic meter
I'm reading The Shipping News by Anne Proulx and on page 217 the word Galliambic shows up as the name of a town. There is no town of that name. Galliambic has apparently only one meaning, as illustrated by the above video. Catullus was an ancient Roman poet, Cybele is a really ancient goddess, and Fridgia is spelled Phyrgia and is an ancient state in central Turkey, not the land of ice and snow inside your Frigidaire.

Candlelight

Story by Candlelight

Michigan Mike went skiing. He says "Gotta do something to keep form going crazy in the winter here."
Which made me think: When did Edison invent the electric light? A hundred years ago? People have been living in Northern Europe for how many thousands of years? What did people do in the winter before there were electric lights?
California Bob chips in: "Well, they had oil lamps and lanterns for quite a while, and candles for ... hundreds?  thousands? of years before that."
Michigan Mike replies: "And there were far fewer people living in the northern climes, probably because they killed each other to take their candles."

Then we have this paragraph from jonljensen:

I recall the introduction to Herman Melville's final published work Clarel. If you haven't heard of Clarel you are not alone. It was last book that Melville published in his lifetime, years after Moby Dick was largely ignored. Melville must have wanted to be ignored to an even greater extent, for Clarel is a verse novel. Over 18,000 lines long, it bares the dubious distinction of being the longest poem in American Literature. Anyway, Hershel Parker in his introduction to the modern edition argues that Melville’s massive work was overlooked in part because of gaslight. Before it, most living rooms might have one lamp per room and thus one reader, reading out loud to a family cloaked in darkness. This made the reading of long poems, Parker reasons, far more popular, prior to gaslight and doomed Clarel. Melville wrote his poem meant for a family circle of reading, the introduction reasoned, but by the time it was published, gaslight lit up whole rooms. Each person might read their own book, cloaked now in their own silence.