{"id":3581,"date":"2009-09-21T18:30:10","date_gmt":"2009-09-21T22:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3581"},"modified":"2009-09-21T16:16:48","modified_gmt":"2009-09-21T20:16:48","slug":"monday-various-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3581","title":{"rendered":"Monday various"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"> <\/font><\/p>\n<ul>  <font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/p>\n<li>Michael Chabon&#8217;s essay on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/articles\/22891\">the Wilderness of Childhood<\/a> got a lot of attention when it was first posted, back in July. (It&#8217;s been sitting in my saved links since then.) I think Chabon made some interesting points, but I also think <a href=\"http:\/\/kenyonreview.org\/blog\/?p=4470#more-4470\">Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky&#8217;s response<\/a> is worth repeating [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bookslut.com\/blog\/\" title=\"Bookslut\">via<\/a>]:<br \/>\n<blockquote><p>I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not really arguing with Chabon here:  he may be right that all children are instinctively adventurers, and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s certainly right that limiting their exploration of the world in the name of safety threatens their creative imagination.  But let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s be clear: the maps we draw for our children are not the maps that guide their lives.  They draw their own maps, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a mistake to confuse them with the nostalgic \u00e2\u20ac\u201c or anguished \u00e2\u20ac\u201d images produced by adult memory. Childhood is a foreign country to us.  We once knew its landmarks, but they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve grown wild in our imaginations, so that the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153adventures\u00e2\u20ac\u009d we remember are now just stories we tell.  Adventure is what we call it when we show the slides.  The natives just call it life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<p><\/font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/p>\n<li>Leaving aside the silliness of a religion based on <em>Star Wars<\/em>, or the questions that are maybe raised about established religions when you ask <em>why<\/em> this one is silly and they&#8217;re not &#8212; or even Tesco&#8217;s valid point that plenty of Jedi(s?) in the movies <em>don&#8217;t<\/em> walk around in public in their hoods &#8212; why <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-1214367\/Jedi-church-founder-thrown-Tesco-refusing-remove-hood-left-emotionally-humiliated.html\">can&#8217;t you wear a hood in their store<\/a>? [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.warrenellis.com\/\" title=\"Warren Ellis\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<p><\/font><\/font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/p>\n<li>Well, at least he wasn&#8217;t wearing this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.neatorama.com\/2009\/07\/16\/flip-top-zombie-shirt\/\">flip-top zombie shirt<\/a>&#8230; [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfsignal.com\/\" title=\"SF Signal\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<p><\/font><\/font><\/font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/p>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/s3fm.co.uk\/permanentbedtime\">Permanent Bedtime<\/a>, which plays a complete recording from BBC Radio&#8217;s late-night <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/b006qfvv\">Shipping Forecast<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.warrenellis.com\/?p=7429\">Warren Ellis<\/a> describes it as such:<\/li>\n<p><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\">The latenight edition of the Shipping Forecast has long been praised by the British as a gentle aid to restful sleep. And dream-filled sleep, too, because the Forecast is famous for listing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153places\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that are entirely notional, a virtual geography inhabited only by ships and the wondering minds of people drifting off into sleep. Sleep districts of the British imagination: Fastnet, Rockall, Dogger, Cromarty, Viking\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\">It&#8217;s quite interesting to take an afternoon nap with that playing in the background. <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/p>\n<li>And finally, I&#8217;ve only watched a couple of episodes, but I quite like NASA&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu\/videos\/irrelevant\/index.html\">IRrelevant Astronomy<\/a> video podcast, particularly the Robot Astronomy Talk Show. [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfsignal.com\/\" title=\"SF Signal\">via<\/a>]<\/li>\n<p><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"> <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\"><font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana\">I quite liked the most recent episode with Linda Hamilton and Dean Stockwell, super genius:<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><object width=\"560\" height=\"340\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/HlXW9ubjccs&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;color1=0x5d1719&#038;color2=0xcd311b\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/HlXW9ubjccs&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;color1=0x5d1719&#038;color2=0xcd311b\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"560\" height=\"340\"><\/embed><\/object><\/li>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Chabon&#8217;s essay on the Wilderness of Childhood got a lot of attention when it was first posted, back in July. (It&#8217;s been sitting in my saved links since then.) I think Chabon made some interesting points, but I also think Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky&#8217;s response is worth repeating [via]: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not really arguing with Chabon here: &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3581\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[65,16,66,50,62,63,31,38,10,7,24],"class_list":["post-3581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-astronomy","tag-books","tag-childhood","tag-funny","tag-radio","tag-religion","tag-sci-fi","tag-science","tag-various","tag-videos","tag-zombies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3581"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}