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On a related note, does anyone have any recommendations for novels set in/around the 1970s-2000s?
I'm trying to compile a list of historical (or historical-adjacent) fiction to have the kids pick from for independent reading projects. I have some ideas for right up until the 1960s, and then I got nothin'.
Thomas Pynchon, maybe, although a lot of those books are either proper old doorstops, somewhat mature/over-ripe in content, or both, and all of them are pretty flippin' weird.
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In other news, votey votey.
The Sheriffship of the Mertonshire Smeke-Wash won't fill itself, y'know!
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In other news, votey votey.
The Sheriffship of the Mertonshire Smeke-Wash won't fill itself, y'know!
Did you hear the election song about the Tories that Brian Eno and Amanda Palmer just recorded? Neil Gaiman posted the video on his various social media accounts.
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Thomas Pynchon, maybe, although a lot of those books are either proper old doorstops, somewhat mature/over-ripe in content, or both, and all of them are pretty flippin' weird.On a related note, does anyone have any recommendations for novels set in/around the 1970s-2000s?
I'm trying to compile a list of historical (or historical-adjacent) fiction to have the kids pick from for independent reading projects. I have some ideas for right up until the 1960s, and then I got nothin'.
I've not read any Pynchon myself, but I have heard he might be a bit too avant-garde for the average high schooler, so I'll probably avoid.
At the moment, my intermittent Googling has brought me
Reconstruction: Huckleberry Finn
Gilded Age/Progressive Era: The Jungle, The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
WWI: All Quiet on the Western Front, Rilla of Ingleside, Ghost Talkers , A Farewell to Arms
Roaring 20s: The Great Gatsby, Z
Depression: The Grapes of Wrath, Water for Elephants
WWII: Code Name Verity, The Book Thief, Farewell to Manzanar, Memoirs of a Geisha
Civil Rights Movement: A Raisin in the Sun
Red Scare: The Crucible
Vietnam War: Fallen Angels
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The problem with books I'd want to teach...subject matter/themes...and I think that's a general problem with most of the literature set in the 70's and later.
Now...that said...
They're exposed to this stuff all the time in their daily life. It would be nice if responsible adults helped guide kids through those sex/drugs/violence/combo platter minefields, but instead parents have a habit of militantly burying their heads in the sand and freak out when a teacher has the audacity to acknowledge the existence of these things and sue the school. And you're in Kansas, where this sort of behavior is pretty prevalent.
My mom used to teach Kurt Vonnegut to select students as an independent study, but she made the parents sign a waiver. But again, select students. Not a classroom full of juniors with varying competency and maturity levels.
I think one thing you can teach from the 70's that isn't focused on drugs, sex, or Vietnam is All the President's Men by Woodward and Bernstein. Non-fiction, and probably a good way to put today's happenings in some sort of perspective. If you run short on time, the movie is pretty good too.
So...the bigger themes of the post 70's...rise of the personal computer, AI, social media, litigation society (see above), Iraq War I and II, Iran-Contra...
So I'm coming up with:
2001:A Space Odyssey by Clarke
The Corpse Washer by Sinan Antoon
Fobbit By David Abrams
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Circle by Dave Eggers
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In other news, votey votey.
The Sheriffship of the Mertonshire Smeke-Wash won't fill itself, y'know!
Did you hear the election song about the Tories that Brian Eno and Amanda Palmer just recorded? Neil Gaiman posted the video on his various social media accounts.
I haven't, but I'll take a look. I'm not so fond of Amanda Palmer's stuff - bit too dramatic for me - but our Savage Worlds GM luuurves her, so he'd like it a lot.
Most of my favoured election-specific musical propaganda has come via the 'Klez4Jez' Facebook page, pro-Labour klezmer for the already convinced
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The problem with books I'd want to teach...subject matter/themes...and I think that's a general problem with most of the literature set in the 70's and later.
Now...that said...
They're exposed to this stuff all the time in their daily life. It would be nice if responsible adults helped guide kids through those sex/drugs/violence/combo platter minefields, but instead parents have a habit of militantly burying their heads in the sand and freak out when a teacher has the audacity to acknowledge the existence of these things and sue the school. And you're in Kansas, where this sort of behavior is pretty prevalent.
My mom used to teach Kurt Vonnegut to select students as an independent study, but she made the parents sign a waiver. But again, select students. Not a classroom full of juniors with varying competency and maturity levels.
I think one thing you can teach from the 70's that isn't focused on drugs, sex, or Vietnam is All the President's Men by Woodward and Bernstein. Non-fiction, and probably a good way to put today's happenings in some sort of perspective. If you run short on time, the movie is pretty good too.
So...the bigger themes of the post 70's...rise of the personal computer, AI, social media, litigation society (see above), Iraq War I and II, Iran-Contra...
So I'm coming up with:
2001:A Space Odyssey by Clarke
The Corpse Washer by Sinan Antoon
Fobbit By David Abrams
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Circle by Dave Eggers
what, no TekWar?
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I'd also throw just about anything by Philip K. Dick on a list of Things That Should Be Taught.
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Tekwar wasn't bad, (Not saying it was GOOD, but it wasnt BAD) ;P
But I didn't think it deserved an entire series out of it, and a (short-lived) TV series. THAT was all due to the Name attached to it. (WIlliam Shatner 'wrote' it, with 'assistance' from an actual writer) ;)
Read 2001, was very slow (Slower than the movie, and thats saying something!) And even as an adult,... yeah I still dont get it. ;P
Might be worth it if your kids like to actually discuss what something did/didn't mean?
Keep meaning to read Neuromancer, keep being told its very good.
The rest of this list? Can't help, sorry. ;)
Although most Heinlein is pretty good for making kids think and is usually fairly entertaining as well.
EDIT- Stranger in a Strange Land was actually pretty good, and made me think too. :)
(As one of my favorite Theater teachers once told us, "Literature/Theater should make you think. It doesn't matter if you LIKE what it makes you think about, as long as your thinking")
;P
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Is this going to be in person, PbP, or other? I want to know my chances of getting to try it =DAlso working on the 100 floor dungeon of trials for our Legend-of-Zelda fan TTRPG game I’m running. I... may have made a mistake.
But! I’ve gotten to 80! Woo!
Hahah!
It's an in-progress in-person PbP that I'm running for my kids.
It's using a thourve-point-eh?-edition P&F "system" (of sorts) that uses heart pieces instead of levels/hit points (effectively each "heart" is 4 hit points, more-or-less), but upgrades specific abilities individually.
My wife (by vote of my children) was Tetra. She started out as a "captain" (limited pirate-style attacks and ability to "encourage" (heal a heart) or "command" (cause a creature to take an action).
My Eldest is Gelato, a Lizalfos who started as a stealthy rogue, but has since followed the path of mage wizzrobe, having collected a couple staves of power and melded them together (super fire staff, super ice staff -> super steam/water staff) who has made "cores and contracts" with a bunch of little monsters so he can summon them.
His things include:
- chu-chus (red, green, yellow, blue, and "dark"/purple)
- keese (some of which are fire)
- rat (some are bombchus)
- kargaroc (those birds from WW)
- peahats
- robots (of various sorts; created from scraps of others)
My Youngest is Oblada, a Rito native to the strange island the other two PCs (my Eldest and my wife) found themselves on. He and Tetra started off kidnapped by bokoblins and were freed by Gelato. Thereafter, he fell in with them and (using his knowledge) helped them navigate the island. He started off as a rudimentary scrapper-type character (scavenging various weapons and items from the bad guys), but entered an ancient tomb (in a quest to become a hero) and overcame a challenge of an ancient dead knight (the last of the order of the long-lost king's equally-long-lost Iron Knuckles), becoming a "hero" - the inheritor of that order's mandate to guard the ancient path to a highly mysterious shadowy realm of doom, preventing it from unleashing its madness on the world. He has continually improved and increased in role of Iron Knuckle/hero and now has a powerful thunder sword and matching armor. (Oblada dual wields massive shields (and has a third on his back), but has no qualms about tossing them (as weapons) and switching to his great sword.)
The threatened invasion from shadow, then, informed the majority of the plot, and their goal is to prevent it from being opened by a mysterious villain they still don't know, yet.
They have
- visited a dodongo graveyard (dodongos being the creatures that grew rupees; now they are extinct)
- collected and saved babies from a miniblin tribe raiding the local (very weird) town
- solved the mystery of strange effects (and creatures) in the area
- fought robots
- defeated monsters
- unraveled a time-spanning plot
- explored a seaside town long ago ravaged and destroyed
- - explored the same town the night it was assaulted and destroyed
- - defeating the bad guys (after it was too late to save the town) and putting off their plans for decades... just in time for them to arrive and thwart their plans...
- accidentally sheered off the top of a mountain and dropped it into the ocean; it's now a mountain ("I mean, (now) it's free real estate")
- and recovered two major artifacts
- restored a slain great fairy (by collecting her fairy-fragments and sacrificing a truly vast horde of rupees, and prayer), rejuvenating fairy fountains across the island chain
They've also recruited twenty-two Shiekah monks (disciples, not tribesman), four minor noble mercenary brothers (the "Paidrags"), a merchant (Lyle), a doofy mage (Carbuncle; he's actually successfully used the spell vague several times!), a canoneer (Fritz; he finally got a canon after more than 3/4 of the game... he's been lugging it around ever since), and a smattering of others.
They opted to go through the 100-layer dungeon to gain as much ability as they could before facing their final foe (who's too busy with three other islands to fully notice the loss of one where the PCs are), and have made it level 75 76 () and are starting to think that despite their hearts they may have taken on too much (as they're now up to three guardians , six beamos statues , and sixteen beamos orbs in a single room - and it only seems to be growing from there), though they're doing pretty well, using tricks, powers, and items they've acquired to "lock down" various guardians and protect themselves (Oblada enters his "shield house" - basically a personal phalanx effect with his three shields, tanking laser blasts) as they dismantle the various things in the room using their unique skills.
They are aaaaaaaaaaaaaaalmost done, but it's tough! Hopefully everybody survives!
(Several floors have been hearts, or fairies to help out.)
Gelato and Oblada did manage to tick off the great fairy, however, by being rude, whiny, and demanding. She was answering questions and they were so unbearable that she left - the kids were kind of shocked. One tried, "Wait, please?" well after the fact, but when I explained why and how she left (and that they no longer got to ask questions/get answers) they both lapsed into silence (though my Eldest acknowledge, "Yeah, that's probably best for her... sigh") and seeeeemed to get what they'd done wrong. Hopefully it was a good learning moment.
Anyway, after finishing the dungeon and getting the final upgrades, they're planning on taking the fight to the MainBadGuy(tm).
If I remember, I'll update you on how it goes.
Unrelated... one more reason why Woran and her people will one day rule the flooded post-apocalyptic world.
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If teachers keep insisting on torturing kids with Herman Melville, I can suggest Arthur C. Clarke with a straight face.
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If teachers keep insisting on torturing kids with Herman Melville, I can suggest Arthur C. Clarke with a straight face.
I LOVED Moby Dick!
When you read it as an adult, you realize that it's a comedy.
Reason for lateness of congratulatory post: I had a bad reaction to my Dilaudid on Monday. Nothing to force me back to the hospital but enough that I felt worse than I ever have in my life. Like that weird sickly state you feel when you first come out of an anesthetic, but continually without getting better. At least not for more than twenty-four hours. Sweating, mild nausea, other effects...
Opiates. They may do some good, but they are pretty much bad news.
:p
I hate them.
I refuse to take them, because I prefer to be the one in control of my actions. I had my wisdom teeth taken out and was prescribed some. When I woke up several hours into what was supposed to be my shift at work, I immediately called, horrified. As it turned out, I was both relieved and even more horrified to learn I'd already called earlier in the day.
My boss knew that I wasn't able to come in and had already scheduled someone else.
However, she... would not tell me what I said. Just, "We... we knew you weren't able to come in today."
That's hooooooooooooooooorrible. I still have no idea what happened or how or what I said. I can't imagine it was tooooooo terrible (I still had a job and no one was all that awkward) but it was super sobering to realize I acted without any memory of what I'd done and that interaction resulted in someone not really telling me what I'd said.
I'd always refused to take any sort of mind-altering substance (save caffeine, though, as much as I love various caffeinated beverages, if I had life to do over again, I'd likely decline that, too) and overly-strong pain killers, and this more than sealed that commitment on a personal (rather than intellectual or emotional*) level.
Also, yeah, the way I felt after-the-fact. Blech.
*
After thirteen months of commuting an hour each way to flip crepes for minimum wage, WW just got a full-time office job with the Census for $20/hour. It will cut his commute in half, and he won't have to drive for Lyft anymore. Or miss seeing the kids on the weekends. He starts in January.
Yes, it's only temporary, and he's still looking for a permanent job, but wow, are we happy.
YES!! AWESOME!!!
On a scale of one to upset, how upset should a new mother be that the nanny poured out four ounces of breast milk that had just been pumped?I'd say somewhere along the "Rasputin got off too easy" scale of capital punishment.
Heh. I was personally thinking something similar, but I refrained from making such a comment at the time.
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Wait? Melville? The 'Cat's Cradle' Melville? (Or am I confusing different authors again?). ;P
If 'yes', then Arthur C Clark for the Win! ;)
Keep meaning to read Neuromancer, keep being told its very good.
It is exceptionally good. It is also older, so some things don't hold up as well, but the majority is fantastic.
That said, it has a shocking amount of sex and drugs in it (compared to much of what I read - not that sex and drugs don't exist in other works, but, as an example, the primary character ("protagonist;" not "hero," though) actually has a character arc prior to the start of the book where he sells drugs to a woman he loves they mutually enjoy during the act, until she's little more than an addict, and by the time the book starts, she's just another addict that he deals drugs to).
Very cyberpunk.
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Hm. Trying to make a crude “old high Orc” quasi-pictographic written language. Gotta make it simplistic enough for ancient orca, but sophisticated enough to communicate specific information (like how to dance, to be specific).
I may be waaaaayyyyyyy overworking this.
(Spoiler: I am.)
((Spoiler2: I don’t think I’m going to succeed.))
I succeeded! Sort of!
I created several words and put them together into a "sentence."
One of the cool things is that while each of the sigils is unique, they're also mostly simple, and you can "layer" them to change their meaning.
Also, the sentences aren't sentences like we have here - they aren't specific, clear expressions of thought, but a collection of words/concepts that get the gist of something across. Specific instructions for physical actions (such as training a creature how to use the dance) use fragments of the other words with "movement" symbols to show how to move precisely.
For example, the point was to teach a kind of worship dance, but the word "dance" never appears. Instead, the ideas of "person" and "moving" and "divinity" all appear. The plan was to then display how to do the dance.
I have not made instructions for how to dance, yet, but the message tells the basics to give context.
The impressionistic nature makes things vague, sometimes, but given context of the whole, it should work. I don't know if I'm ever going to write it all down, though.
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Wait? Melville? The 'Cat's Cradle' Melville? (Or am I confusing different authors again?). ;P
If 'yes', then Arthur C Clark for the Win! ;)
Cat's Cradle was Kurt Vonnegut.
Melville is best known for Moby Dick, Bartleby the Scrivener, and Typee.
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If teachers keep insisting on torturing kids with Herman Melville, I can suggest Arthur C. Clarke with a straight face.I LOVED Moby Dick!
When you read it as an adult, you realize that it's a comedy.
You're the first real person I've ever heard of that's liked Moby Dick.
Then again, you're on the internet, so you don't actually exist, and I can safely ignore this information and delude myself into pretending it never happened.
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I liked Moby Dick, except for the part where he spit out Pinocchio.
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If teachers keep insisting on torturing kids with Herman Melville, I can suggest Arthur C. Clarke with a straight face.I LOVED Moby Dick!
When you read it as an adult, you realize that it's a comedy.
You're the first real person I've ever heard of that's liked Moby Dick.
Then again, you're on the internet, so you don't actually exist, and I can safely ignore this information and delude myself into pretending it never happened.
FINALLY, proof NH doesnt exist.
Also, Vany, is that a hose in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
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According to the PlayStation store I can play Fallout 76 for free between December 12-16.
Still not worth it.
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Wait? Melville? The 'Cat's Cradle' Melville? (Or am I confusing different authors again?). ;P
If 'yes', then Arthur C Clark for the Win! ;)
Cat's Cradle was Kurt Vonnegut.
Melville is best known for Moby Dick, Bartleby the Scrivener, and Typee.
Ah, Ah HAH!
Yes. This.Read Cat's Cradle. NOT a Vonnegut fan. Probably will never read another of his books.
I was thinking China Mielville (I think)
Read one book of his,... How do I put this?
Well-written, must admit, some story ideas that actually pulled me in. (When you spend at least part of a book wondering if you can translate something you read into a game system terms for your friends, you found SOMEthing that you like)
But when you finish and there is no clear 'victor', or even complete resolution to the conflict, (good or bad), and the unfinished drama NEEDS resolution, (even if it's not a happy ending) and there is not likely to be a sequel/trilogy/etc out of it,... Yeah, then it just seems weird when your done.
O_o
Again, as long as it makes you think! (I guess?) ;P
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If teachers keep insisting on torturing kids with Herman Melville, I can suggest Arthur C. Clarke with a straight face.I LOVED Moby Dick!
When you read it as an adult, you realize that it's a comedy.
You're the first real person I've ever heard of that's liked Moby Dick.
Then again, you're on the internet, so you don't actually exist, and I can safely ignore this information and delude myself into pretending it never happened.
FINALLY, proof NH doesnt exist.
Also, Vany, is that a hose in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
Hopefully that should teach you not to bring up that which Shatner "shatnered" all over the place ever again.
And before you do it...that includes his rendition of Rocket Man.
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If teachers keep insisting on torturing kids with Herman Melville, I can suggest Arthur C. Clarke with a straight face.I LOVED Moby Dick!
When you read it as an adult, you realize that it's a comedy.
You're the first real person I've ever heard of that's liked Moby Dick.
Then again, you're on the internet, so you don't actually exist, and I can safely ignore this information and delude myself into pretending it never happened.
FINALLY, proof NH doesnt exist.
Also, Vany, is that a hose in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
Hopefully that should teach you not to bring up that which Shatner "shatnered" all over the place ever again.
But what about Ro-
And before you do it...that includes his rendition of Rocket Man.
Damn!
I liked Moby Dick, except for the part where he spit out Pinocchio.
I liked when he wrote about dreaming about pokemon, though.
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Hello, everyone.
I'm well rested, but I hope that I don't have to pull another double shift anytime soon.
So say we all!
Is this going to be in person, PbP, or other? I want to know my chances of getting to try it =DAlso working on the 100 floor dungeon of trials for our Legend-of-Zelda fan TTRPG game I’m running. I... may have made a mistake.
But! I’ve gotten to 80! Woo!
Hahah!
It's an in-progress in-person PbP that I'm running for my kids.
It's using a thourve-point-eh?-edition P&F "system" (of sorts) that uses heart pieces instead of levels/hit points (effectively each "heart" is 4 hit points, more-or-less), but upgrades specific abilities individually.
My wife (by vote of my children) was Tetra. She started out as a "captain" (limited pirate-style attacks and ability to "encourage" (heal a heart) or "command" (cause a creature to take an action).
My Eldest is Gelato, a Lizalfos who started as a stealthy rogue, but has since followed the path of
magewizzrobe, having collected a couple staves of power and melded them together (super fire staff, super ice staff -> super steam/water staff) who has made "cores and contracts" with a bunch of little monsters so he can summon them.
His things include:
- chu-chus (red, green, yellow, blue, and "dark"/purple)
- keese (some of which are fire)
- rat (some are bombchus)
- kargaroc (those birds from WW)
- peahats
- robots (of various sorts; created from scraps of others)My Youngest is Oblada, a Rito native to the strange island the other two PCs (my Eldest and my wife) found themselves on. He and Tetra started off kidnapped by bokoblins and were freed by Gelato. Thereafter, he fell in with them and (using his knowledge) helped them navigate the island. He started off as a rudimentary scrapper-type character (scavenging various weapons and items from the bad guys), but entered an ancient tomb (in a quest to become a hero) and overcame a challenge of an ancient dead...
Hm. One supposes I could write it up and share at some point. I have no idea I’d ever do that. Hm. With thinking about I suppose. It dooooes sound pretty epic when I reread my own post. Hm.
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According to the PlayStation store I can play Fallout 76 for free between December 12-16.
Still not worth it.
I am not even sure that they could pay me to play it at this point.
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Some interesting books I'd forgotten
10 books that defined the 70s
"Roots" was one of them
The 1980s brings "The Color Purple"
80s
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Moments that make you proud of your kids.
On the walk home we had to stop twice, so Tiny T-Rex could read Pact Worlds.
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Man.
She-ra keeps getting DARKER.
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Man.
She-ra keeps getting DARKER.
I think you're mixing it up with the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina the Witch.
I think you're mixing it up with the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina the Witch.Man.
She-ra keeps getting DARKER.
That definitely kept getting darker and I hated it. I just kind of hate-watched it after a while until I finished it. Sometimes I loved it. Oftentimes not. I'unno. It was weird.
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That definitely kept getting darker and I hated it. I just kind of hate-watched it after a while until I finished it. Sometimes I loved it. Oftentimes not. I'unno. It was weird.I think you're mixing it up with the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina the Witch.Man.
She-ra keeps getting DARKER.
That was how I felt about the nursing home season of Grace and Frankie. I quit watching after that.
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That definitely kept getting darker and I hated it. I just kind of hate-watched it after a while until I finished it. Sometimes I loved it. Oftentimes not. I'unno. It was weird.I think you're mixing it up with the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina the Witch.Man.
She-ra keeps getting DARKER.
I love my dark sabrina. Nice philosophical arguements could be had.
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I dunno; I figured when Rainbow Dash died of EPM, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic became the darkest show I'd seen...
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I dunno; I figured when Rainbow Dash died of EPM, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic became the darkest show I'd seen...
bite your tongue.
Freehold!
A true beauty to catch an eyeful of!
(Or something, I'unno, I suck at making these things sound lurid and enticing; it's someone showing off all the Holy Sword skills complete with old incantations! W00t!)
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So, this is the kind of article that incenses me.
"A mathematician has found a new way to derive the quadratic formula that's MUCH easier than the old way!"
It is side-splittingly bad.
Not as in "bad math".
As in, "Holy crap, that takes twice as long to derive and is actually harder to understand than completing the square."
Just for yuks, I did the full derivation by completing the square, showing every single step, and it was shorter than theirs.
So, is it a clever new way to derive the quadratic formula? Yes, it is. He realized something very clever and deserves credit for coming up with a truly novel idea. Kind of like the 367 proofs of the Pythagorean Theorem: If you come up with a new one, you really are quite clever.
Just don't tell me it's the "easiest" one yet. Especially if it's not.
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I've never wanted a robotic tail.
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I've never wanted a robotic tail.Real tail?
I already get plenty of real tail.