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The Nibelungenlied
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 1801
Curious, 12th or 13th Century tale of the death of Siegfried and the subsequent revenge by Kriemhild upon the treacherous Hagen. Filled with a sort of cartoonish, Hollywood style of violence wherein the protagonists prevail (for a time) against seemingly insurmountable odds, introducing and slightly fleshing out characters such as Brunhild and Rudiger, it served as my introduction to the medieval German myths and legends. Now, to be truthful, while it's a classic I wasn't overwhelmed by it, the translation I read (A. T. Hatto) sought to preserve the narrative at the expense of the poetry, and not speaking medieval German I'm not in a position to comment on whether he did a good or a bad job, I suspect the former. But it was redeemed in the numerous appendices and footnotes, which clarified and interpreted certain passages and generally raised my estimitation of it.
Now the introduction is often, in my view, something to be avoided, it frequently presumes you are familiar with the plot and outcome of the story and makes free with spilling events and offering criticisms and interpretations before you've had a chance to appraise it yourself. But in this instance the introduction and notes were saved until the end, where they served the proper function of clarifying the text and comparing the outline with the various antecedent poems and stories that preceded it. Which was a good thing.
Or is it? While I don't like "spoilers", it should be noted that it's original audience was very familiar with the plot, and the telling of the story was simply a different "interpretation" or fleshing out/tying together of various of the legends surrounding Siegfried and the Burgundians. So in this sense, to have the same appreciation as it's audience, forewarned might have been forearmed....
Other observations? Curious as to the events that actually led to the creation of the myths of Siegried and Kriemhild, curious as to how the audience reconciles the 2 halves, the first in which Siegfried is the hero treacherously murdered, Kriemhild the cruelly widowed Queen, then the second half where she weds King Etzel and becomes a vengeful sort of demon who sacrifices all in her quest for revenge, Hagen's role switches from that of traitor to that of hero... But then these become questions of our culture and time, and my absence of sympathy is largely due to my lack of understanding and context.
And the treasure of the Nibelung's, Kriemhild's dowry from Siegfried sunken into the Rhine...
Francis Parkman - The Oregon Trail - Sketches of Prairie and Rocky Mountain Life
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Books
- Hits: 1718
An interesting read, in the genre of "Travel Literature", a firsthand account of the prairies and the Oregon Trail as recounted by Francis Parkman, circa 1845.
Colorful locations and characters, and a world that while only a 165-odd years ago might as well have been the ice age...Fierce and savage Indian tribes, Buffalo herds numbering in the tens of thousands, and everywhere they went wildlife...dozens of snakes underfoot, a cup of water taken from a stream is filled with tadpoles and frogs, and where the author notes there is no game to be shot he clarifies "No buffalo, deer or antelope", because always there are the wolves, the coyotes, the prairie dogs and rattlesnakes....
And I think, I've been to these places, some of which are still wild, yet where is the game now? It's rare enough to spot a frog or snake in the wildest of places, and the buffalo have long been gone from the prairie...
The Brothers Quay
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 2009
Nothing short of Genius. The stuff of animated nightmares, odd, compelling, deeply rich and evocative symbolism and themes.....
They credit their inspiration and influences in part to Jan Švankmajer and are credited for inspiring the likes of Tim Burton.
A short sample below, taken from "Street of Crocodiles", more can be found linked to it, or anthologies rented from Bird Dog Video.
Benford's Law
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 1798
Listening to Radiolab, much fodder for the imagination. Like Benford's Law. For those not familiar, it basically states that "in lists of numbers from many (but not all) real-life sources of data, the leading digit is distributed in a specific, non-uniform way. According to this law, the first digit is 1 almost one third of the time, and larger digits occur as the leading digit with lower and lower frequency, to the point where 9 as a first digit occurs less than one time in twenty. This distribution of first digits arises logically whenever a set of values is distributed logarithmically."
Or, more precisely: "Benford's law states that the leading digit d (d ∈ {1, …, b − 1} ) in base b (b ≥ 2) occurs with probability:"
Source: Wikipedia
Now this is intriguing. It can be explained to some extent and in some instances by mechanisms of growth (eg: fibonocci sequence), or in other word most systems & organisms "grow" and so when measured exhibit typical growth patterns (eg: cities - addresses grow out from center, hence disproportionate number of addresses beginning with a 1..). But note the qualifier - that to some extent and in some instances. There are apparently as well instances of data that conform to Bedford's law yet in no ways could be considered "alive" or "organic". Which is curious.
And, to add to the curiosity, in the same program (radiolab, numbers), the point is raised that while the recognition of numbers is an ability we are all born with, it's not the observation of linear numbers and quantity as we know it, rather instead a logarithmic means of counting - meaning that a child will recognize double and quadruple amounts more readily and primitive tribes who have not developed the same perspective we have, if asked to choose the midway point between 1 and 9, for example, would choose 3, whereas we - by training and force of habit - would choose 5.
Which is very curious indeed. I've explained it poorly, but listen to the radiolab program to hear it explained more in depth and in a much more interesting fashion...
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