reading about the participation of children in rituals as a form of play in ancient greece and came across an incredibly charming story from julius pollux's onomasticon where a flood prevented the adults from reaching a sanctuary to sacrifice a ram to heracles, and the children solved the problem by....sticking a bunch of sticks in an apple to give it "legs" and "horns" and offering it as a sacrifice instead. it's such a charming thought and i can perfectly picture kids these days also pretending at sacrificing an apple "goat" at recess
I think there is a difference between reading everything and expanding your horizons and having a preference about POV tbh. I have read so many genres, so many POVs. And I have discovered over the years that I prefer third person past tense over first person or present tense. Does that mean I refuse to read books that are first person? Absolutely not! Some of my favorite books are in first person! But I do have a preference for the style of third person and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
Preference is a part of life, and often we don't have much of a say in what we end up preferring. What matters is that we don't let our preferences control our life and experiences. If you prefer a genre or writing convention, that's fine - just don't staunchly cling to it and refuse to engage with or experience anything else.
Yeah the original post is good advice for like, a 12 year old who has no experience with fiction or a novelist who wants to improve their craft not like. Some guy lol. Reminds me of people who say everyone should listen to 6 genres a day of music or some nonsense. Everyone has different thresholds for their hobbies!
You can be "just" a consumer. You can be basic. You can stick to one pov, one genre, read a single children's book while living in a cave. You can never touch anything sophisticated enough to win an award or never touch anything with a smaller fandom size than "reasonably large."
At some point people need to recognize that it's beautiful everyone gets something different out of a book and that difference includes "it's on the very short list of things they'll use their precious time on." Because at the end of the day I can appreciate that a non fiction book about geese is not going to pull in the geese haters. It's still about geese!! What are you going to analyze, the tasteful typography?? It's dull as fuck to read shit you hate. Don't bother.
#excuse me but are you telling me that the Apollo pic is made with the help of the SUN and the Artemis one with the help of the MOON??? #that's actually so poetic i want to cry
@gorandomshesaid wait i need to sit with this one. wait.
you know it's gonna be a good fable when it hits you right off the bat with 1. aesop being seen as an authority on gay people 2. his answer to why the gays exist is prometheus
The other night I reorganized the folder on my computer where I keep all the weird New York Herald personal ads I post.
Over the years I've been clipping these I've come across a handful of personals that were just straight up written in code.
As I was going through the folder I noticed that almost all the coded ads were printed within a year or two of each other (specifically between 1850 and 1852). Looking a bit more closely I also began to realize that the same coded words and phrases were appearing across multiple personals - suggesting they were all written in the same code (which appeared to be a basic substitution cipher), likely by the same person/people.
Possessing multiple samples of the code, struck by the type of confidence that only hits at 11:30 at night, and having the little know-how remaining from a special interest in cryptology in middle school, I thought... I bet I can crack that.
So I took the longest coded personal I had at the time (the image directly above - I've since found a much longer one), cracked open a notebook and got cryptoquip-ing.
I had a few little hitches due to words being mispelled in the original ad and a few unclear letters due to poor quality newsprint, but I soon found myself with a mostly decoded message...
"This morning at elevn[sic] precisely be at Carter's bookstore two eighty five Broadway. As a prete?h ask for their directory. Don't fail."
I made myself a key (V and W are Q and Z, but as neither letter is ever used in an ad there's no way to tell which is which.)...
...and got to decoding the other personal ads and putting them chronological order.
Let's see what was worth encoding 175 years ago...
July 16, 1850 -
"You have arrived by this time I suppose my own dearest Josie. I shall wait ivpatiently[sic] for the Asia hoping to hear from you. I went to vespers Sunday and sat in your pew. You are never out of my thoughts. I have written down all that has occurred which I thought would interest you. We will read it together on our first drive after your return. I kiss this on which your eyes will rest. Do not forget your own fond devoted Jerry."
---
September 12, 1850 -
"Welcome my dearest Josie; when can k[sic] see you."
---
September 17, 1850 -
"Not one word from you dearest while away or since you returndd[sic]. Have your feelings then changed, See last Thursdays Herald. I dare not see you for the first time at home."
---
October 10, 1850 -
"I’m sick with anxiety about you, love. Will you not see me."
---
The ads then skip almost two years (I'm planning to go through the intervening microfilm by hand at some point to make sure there aren't any sneaky ones I missed)...
June 3, 1852 -
"Dearest - I was very ill whne[sic] you wrote."
---
July 4, 1852 -
"Deareft[sic] - Just return[sic] from Albany write again to me box in post office."
---
July 7, 1852 -
"Today three oclock Jersey City ferry house."
---
July 8, 1852 -
"This morning at eleven south ferry New York side."
Street cars and omnibuses wait outside the South Ferry terminal in New York City, circa 1865.
---
July 13, 1852 (the original message I decoded) -
"This morning at elevn[sic] precisely be at Carters Bookstore two eighty five Broadway. As a pretexh[sic] ask for their directory. Don’t fail."
Carter's Bookstore (indicated by janky arrow) as seen in a panoramic view published in Gleason's Pictorial, March 18, 1854.
---
Another time skip, this time 5 months.
December 14, 1852 -
"Give me a da y[sic] dear."
---
And the final message (that I've found as of writing this)...
December 25, 1852 -
"Mnray[sic] at elevn[sic] Catharine Ferry New York."
It may not be the most thrilling of Victorian espionage, but it still feels pretty cool to read something no one else has read in 175 years.
I've gone through about 3 months worth of microfilm by hand and found two more coded ads that weren't picked up by the text recognition due to blurry newsprint, but it's a slog so it's going to take a while.
So what are our theories? Did these two crazy kids make it? What was keeping them apart? Why the two year gap? What were all the meetings for?
flay me and the meat and bone beneath would still be Butch. love me tenderly and receive my softness, every salty teardrop, every wretched sob, every gentle smile, and you’ll feel it there, in the crinkle of my eyes. you can’t buy callouses, can’t condense it into an article of clothing, and you certainly can’t try on a stereotyped costume of masculinity one day, call it “butch”, and then shed it the next. i don’t magically transform into a vision of femininity when you put me in a dress. ever seen a feral cat in a harness and leash?
yeah. you get the picture.
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