![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fiat_knoxSo, on Monday I wrote about the X-Men, and then moved seamlessly into the subject of teaching - particularly teaching intelligence.
And nobody noticed, because they saw "The X-Men" and thought "Oh. Okay. He's going to talk about comics. *blank expression what's for tea?*"
And yesterday, I spoke out in my blog Hypnotic Erotic about the fun things I can do with audio files and scripts, inducing trances, getting clients to do fun things and so on.
So, then, today's topic. And I really only have three slots left - including this one - to talk about. What, then, to talk about? The philosophies I follow? Science fiction and fantasy? What can I leave out, or allow you to take it as read that I am a fan of them?
Well, I've considered what to write about for tomorrow's and Friday's SOWYGO blog posts, and I might come up with a bonus geek item or two before the end, so that really only leaves today's topic.
The other day, I responded to news of the discovery of Roman ruins of a gladiatorial school in Austria with the line "Non loquuntur de Scholae Gladiatorum, prima regula Scholae Gladiatorum est." This morning, I found myself thinking of the old Star Trekkin' song, and reciting the lines of one particular verse - again in Latin:-
Vitae est, Jim, sed non cognoscitur.
Non cognoscitur,
Non cognoscitur.
Vitae est, Jim, sed non cognoscitur,
Non cognoscitur,
Ducem.
(It's a tribute to my memory that I could write that out, rather than dig through my old Facebook posts to cut and paste it).
A while back, I recited a line in Latin to a pretty blonde woman, telling her that this was some philosophical statement made by the Roman poet Virgil. The exact words I used, which I quote verbatim, were:-
Futue me nunc, longe et dure, et bis durior Dominici.
Now this might make it sound as if I'm just a fan of Latin. Which, well, I truly am. However, that love extends far beyond Latin, to embrace other languages.
Even if I only know a few words, those words really count. The old Catalan pre-mealtime blessing menja bé, caga fort i no tinguis por a la mort! (Eat well, shit strongly and do not fear death!) may be the only Catalan words I know, but I can see their Latin origins easily enough that I can understand it - and perhaps enough that I could have a stab at understanding and speaking Catalan if I ever wind up in Catalonia.
Also, I know some Italian, but my favourite line of Italian is Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate - All Hope Abandon, Ye Who Enter Here from the Divine Comedy.
And I take great delight in using The Voice while reciting that phrase. I might try and set it to an MP3 and post it to Freesound some time ...
And of course, there are those languages I just love - my native tongue of Welsh; French; Japanese; Esperanto; the abovementioned languages; the smattering of Mandarin Chinese I have picked up from watching Firefly and the followup movie Serenity, and what else I've learned for myself; Portuguese (thanks forever for turning me on to Portuguese, Laura Cattani); enough German, Dutch and Russian to get on with and survive, and some very badly pronounced Korean.
Along with, of course ...
Klingon.
So you understand that when I had to pick the subjects out about which I geek, I just have to post about languages at some point.
Even if I don't have enough spaces this week to speak of the geek music I love, the SF and fantasy books I read, my love of roleplaying games, TV shows, movies, radio serials, comics (think 2000AD more than Superman, and Barry Ween, Watchmen and X-Men over the rest), the philosophies I follow and the Left Hand Path, in the spaces available to me I have to give huge pride of place to languages.
I would be vastly diminished without my languages.
And nobody noticed, because they saw "The X-Men" and thought "Oh. Okay. He's going to talk about comics. *blank expression what's for tea?*"
And yesterday, I spoke out in my blog Hypnotic Erotic about the fun things I can do with audio files and scripts, inducing trances, getting clients to do fun things and so on.
So, then, today's topic. And I really only have three slots left - including this one - to talk about. What, then, to talk about? The philosophies I follow? Science fiction and fantasy? What can I leave out, or allow you to take it as read that I am a fan of them?
Well, I've considered what to write about for tomorrow's and Friday's SOWYGO blog posts, and I might come up with a bonus geek item or two before the end, so that really only leaves today's topic.
The other day, I responded to news of the discovery of Roman ruins of a gladiatorial school in Austria with the line "Non loquuntur de Scholae Gladiatorum, prima regula Scholae Gladiatorum est." This morning, I found myself thinking of the old Star Trekkin' song, and reciting the lines of one particular verse - again in Latin:-
Vitae est, Jim, sed non cognoscitur.
Non cognoscitur,
Non cognoscitur.
Vitae est, Jim, sed non cognoscitur,
Non cognoscitur,
Ducem.
(It's a tribute to my memory that I could write that out, rather than dig through my old Facebook posts to cut and paste it).
A while back, I recited a line in Latin to a pretty blonde woman, telling her that this was some philosophical statement made by the Roman poet Virgil. The exact words I used, which I quote verbatim, were:-
Futue me nunc, longe et dure, et bis durior Dominici.
Now this might make it sound as if I'm just a fan of Latin. Which, well, I truly am. However, that love extends far beyond Latin, to embrace other languages.
Even if I only know a few words, those words really count. The old Catalan pre-mealtime blessing menja bé, caga fort i no tinguis por a la mort! (Eat well, shit strongly and do not fear death!) may be the only Catalan words I know, but I can see their Latin origins easily enough that I can understand it - and perhaps enough that I could have a stab at understanding and speaking Catalan if I ever wind up in Catalonia.
Also, I know some Italian, but my favourite line of Italian is Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate - All Hope Abandon, Ye Who Enter Here from the Divine Comedy.
And I take great delight in using The Voice while reciting that phrase. I might try and set it to an MP3 and post it to Freesound some time ...
And of course, there are those languages I just love - my native tongue of Welsh; French; Japanese; Esperanto; the abovementioned languages; the smattering of Mandarin Chinese I have picked up from watching Firefly and the followup movie Serenity, and what else I've learned for myself; Portuguese (thanks forever for turning me on to Portuguese, Laura Cattani); enough German, Dutch and Russian to get on with and survive, and some very badly pronounced Korean.
Along with, of course ...
Klingon.
So you understand that when I had to pick the subjects out about which I geek, I just have to post about languages at some point.
Even if I don't have enough spaces this week to speak of the geek music I love, the SF and fantasy books I read, my love of roleplaying games, TV shows, movies, radio serials, comics (think 2000AD more than Superman, and Barry Ween, Watchmen and X-Men over the rest), the philosophies I follow and the Left Hand Path, in the spaces available to me I have to give huge pride of place to languages.
I would be vastly diminished without my languages.
