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Main parties announce pledges to veterans on Remembrance Sunday
Leaders of the main parties have laid out their plans for veterans on Remembrance Sunday. Picture: PA Images
By Ewan Quayle
@EQjourno
Both the main parties have set out their plans to win the support of armed forces veterans in the UK.
Labour reiterated their ambitious reforms, first announced in June, to the way veterans and their families are housed calling for an end to reliance on private rented sector.
The party have also pledged to make school admissions easier for veterans whose children regularly move schools, alongside the creation of public body to "give a voice" to service men and women.
Right now, 60,000 veterans have been let down by the Tories. Labour will guarantee justice for veterans. pic.twitter.com/Ta1QiVGPev
— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) November 10, 2019
Meanwhile, the Conservatives say they will extend the HM Forces railcard to veterans and their family members who are not eligible for other railcards.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the railcard would support up to 700,000 former Armed Forces personnel and claims the move will save veterans and their families hundreds of pounds a year.
Mr Shapps said: "We owe a debt to the men and women who've served our country.
"This railcard will support veterans who don't already qualify for senior or disabled people's railcards to make the most of the opportunities available after their service, whether employment or strengthening links with friends and family."
The promises come on Remembrance day, where political leaders paid their respects at the traditional wreath-laying service at the Cenotaph.


This page displays sold house prices for Highfield Avenue in Sheffield.
Highfield Avenue in Kiveton Park, Sheffield consists predominantly of semi-detached houses. Properties on Highfield Avenue typically have values around £100,000 - £150,000, ranging upwards of £150,000 for larger semi-detached houses.
Map showing Highfield Avenue in Sheffield.


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La Huerta è un comune del Messico, situato nello stato di Jalisco.

Altri progetti

Collegamenti esterni

Comuni del Jalisco

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Today I want to take a second to talk a little about WHY picking a word of the year is so powerful.
I'm on day 18 over here of sharing people's stories I for their 2019 words, and maybe you are wondering… WHY?? What's the big deal? What does it matter? Why do you even care??
Well, I really believe picking a word of the year to be one of the most powerful things you can do in terms of goal setting and personal growth. Words of the year have a way of following you, growing and evolving with you, and making a really impactful change if you let them!
Rather than speak in vague terms, about success and evolution and internal growth… I thought I would just share my story with you. Here is my word of the year Journey, and what it has meant to me. My hope is that it inspires you and helps you understand a little, just what I get so worked up about over here when I start getting giddy talking about words!
2015, the BEGINning: I picked my first Word of the Year in 2015. 2015, it was the first year I choose a word, and when I thought about what mattered to me, I felt ready to just begin. I wanted to step into all of the things I'd been waiting to begin for years. Little did I knew it that year, but my year of "Begin" was actually going to be a beginning of SO MANY things. It was the beginning of picking words of the year, it was the beginning of going back to school, the begging of illustrating for actual physical scrapbooking companies, getting a job outside of the home, and most importantly finding some courage and confidence in my abilities as an artist… It started me on this path I've come to love SO much. This path of less self-doubt and putting things off, and more DOING the things I'm dreaming of. Begin taught me that the first baby step is actually the most important thing, begin launched me forward, into well, everything.
Blooming in 2016: I started 2016 feeling so much further along than I was the year before, and because I had had the courage to begin the year before, in 2016 I was able to focus on growing in the things I already had planted. I took class, upon class, I learned to really relish getting better and growing. I really learning started watercolor, I formed an art journaling habit… I let myself I bloom into more and of myself. It was a precious year of competence building, and finding footing and letting myself blossom. Once again the word bloom stuck with me, it gave me permission I needed to really invest into myself. It helped me get stronger and more sure. It was such a great year for growing my business, and my skill set… and every time I started to feel like "should I do this, can I do this??" I got to remind myself that this year was a year to BLOOM. It was a beautiful thing!
Embrace 2017: In 2017 the word I needed simply found me. I found the #embrace campaign and the brilliant Taryn Brumfit. I knew as soon as I hit that new year, that it was just time. Time to stop trying to be something I was not both in my physical body and in the way I exist in the world. I read books like Love Warrior, and Eat Pray Love, I stopped my yo-yo dieting cycles and just let my self BE. Over and over and over I came back to this word, as I learned to really appreciate who I am in an honest way. I can not even tell you how powerful it was to spend a full year focusing on just being ME. On appreciating my body, my abilities, my flaws. I honestly break down in tears every time I talk about my year of Embrace – because the way this year changed me was so powerful. (You can read my embrace post that I did mid year that year right if you would like… and let me tell you, those things I learned, that peace with myself I found has only grown since. It is such a beautiful thing) Embracing was a gift I gave myself for sure, and a gift that changed how I felt about myself on a deep, meaningful, level that I still hold to every day!
2018 the year of Fearless: This past year, 2018, friends this year was the year for FEARLESS – it was all born from the bible verse that says "There is no Fear in love" and on the tail of optical upheaval and so much divisiveness, I found myself SO challenged by that verse. I can't possibly fit everything this word has meant to me in this one summary post, but for today let me tell you that this word has shifted so many things for me! It has forced me to stop hiding behind "sweet" and to be more REAL, it has given me motivation and courage to do really hard things, to face some of those long-standing limiting beliefs that were holding me back. It has spurred me into success in my business, it has brought me closer to the people I love the most because I don't hide behind my old ways of being. I had NO IDEA how much I was operating from a place a fear until I invited the word FEARLESS in, and WHEW. It has been a year of courage, and boldness, and HOPE. It has been the perfect word to move me forward and help me grow stronger. I'm beyond proud of my work, and so grateful for what fearless had to teach me. I seriously had NO idea going in…. and today I'm kinda reeling when I think about it! Fearless is a word that I will come back to forever, because any time I find myself having an intense reaction, being unkind or unfair or overly self-critical, I've learned to start looking for that hidden layer of fear – it is amazing how enlightening it has been.
This upcoming 2019 is all about Chosen. I want to remember in everything I do, that I have a calling, that I was chosen for this time, this place in my life… AND, I think even more importantly, I need to remember that I have CHOSEN to be here. Everything I take on, every journey I take, every decision I make: let it be with the mindset of my chosen purpose. I want to embrace my plans, my goals, my chosen course with all the fearlessness I learned in 2018.
I have so SO much to learn about choosing and planning and goal setting, this may actually be a million times harder than "Fearless"… because choice scares the crap out of me. BUT -if these past 4 years have taught me anything, it is that my word has places to take me that I don't even know… and that when I CHOOSE something and go after it, beautiful things follow. So I choose CHOSEN, I choose a life of intention… and I'm going to choose fiercely.
Friends, I can't even tell you how much of a gift each of these words have been for me! It is such a great evolution on the idea of "resolutions"… because I had a tendency to see resolutions as very"pass/fail" to me, and these words, the felt like they could be woven into my real life. Over and over, they meet me right where I'm at, and remind me, what my vision for the year is.
AHHHHH! Seriously it is so exciting I can't even stand it.
I love looking back, I love seeing how far I've come. In 2015, I didn't even know really what I wanted from my life, and gosh, today I feel like the world is my oyster, and I KNOW who I am… This next year has so much potential to be powerful, and so I'm going to go for it with all my heart!!
Have you picked a word of the year yet?? If so I hope you've shared your story with me over on my WOTY page! One thing I have found is that the more I put my word out there, the more I talk about it, celebrate it, surround myself with it, the more it sinks in and becomes a way of life. So be sure to make it YOURS by getting that word around you in your environment. I have a necklace, a mug, a foil print, a notebook, and all of those things have helped me cling to fearless, especially when it was feeling hard.
Best of luck friends! Keep following along with my Handlettered Word of the Year project where I'm sharing videos of your words, and your stories over on Instagram and Facebook, and be sure to get your word in using the form on my WOTY Page!!! And then pick up some word of the year goodies in my Etsy Shop, because it helps so much to have your word surrounding you throughout the year!
Hi I don't really understand this WOTY. Do you meditate, journal pray? I just feel lost and confused! HELP!


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Marlene Benkowski
Funeral services for Marlene Benkowski of Morris will be Tuesday, November 2, 2021 at 10:30 a.m. at Assumption Catholic Church in Morris, with Father Todd Schneider and Father Stan Weiser celebrating the mass. Visitation will be Monday from 5 to 7 p.m. with a rosary at 7 p.m. at the Pedersen Funeral Home in Morris and for one hour prior to the service at the church on Tuesday. Burial will take place Tuesday at 2:00 p.m. at Wildwood Cemetery, Wheaton, Minnesota.
Marlene Determan Benkowski was born on April 25, 1933 to Leo and Catherine (Thull) Sand in New Munich, Minnesota. She was baptized and confirmed in New Munich. Marlene attended District 117 in rural St. Martin Township. She continued her education at the West Central School of Agriculture in Morris, Minnesota, graduating in 1952. Following her graduation, Marlene went to Wheaton, Minnesota with a friend and began working at a department store there. She met Sylvester Determan, the two began dating and were later married on June 16, 1954, in New Munich. The couple made their home on a farm near Wheaton where they worked on the farm and raised their family. In 1969, after their youngest child started first grade, Marlene went back to work. She started as a certified nurses' aide at a nursing home in Wheaton and later took a job in food service at the school. Marlene retired at the age of 66, but then continued to volunteer to drive seniors in Wheaton. Sylvester passed away in 1996. Following his death, Marlene continued to live on the farm. In 2001, she met and later married Stanley Benkowski at St. John's Catholic Church in Ortonville. The couple lived on the farm in Wheaton. Stanley died in 2003. Marlene lived on the farm until 2009 when she moved into West Central Homes in Morris.
Marlene was a member of Ava Maria Catholic Church in Wheaton until her move to Morris and then became a member of Assumption Catholic Church where she was an active member. Marlene is also a member of the Morris VFW Auxiliary. She enjoyed dancing and traveling all over the continental US.
Marlene passed away Friday, October 29, 2021 at West Wind Village in Morris. She was 88 years old.
Marlene is survived by her best friend, Maurice Holslin of Alberta; five children: Mary (Dave) McLaughlin of Chico, California, Jon (Trudy) Determan of Wheaton, Joel (Lori) Determan of Andover, Kristi (Tom) Skowronek of Ramsey, and Pat (Mike) Estenson of Moorhead; 13 grandchildren; 11 great-grandchilren; brothers: Maynard (Melva) Sand of Avon and Sylverious Sand of St. Cloud; sisters: Jean (Clarence) Enneking of Albany, Floriann (Raymond) Mayers of New Munich; sisters-in-law: Eileen Sand of Avon, Donna Sand of Freeport, Betty Sand of Albany and Lorraine Sand of Melrose; and good friend: Anne Hansen of Morris. She is preceded in death by her husbands: Sylvester and Stanley; sisters: Lucille Sand in infancy, Joan Otto and Pauline Kruscek; brothers: Bert Sand, Vern Sand, Jerome Sand, Eddie Sand, and Ervin Sand; sisters-in-law: Carrie Sand and Betty Sand.
In lieu of flowers, memorials are preferred to a charity of your choice.
Pedersen Funeral Home in Morris is in charge of the arrangements for Marlene. To send condolences to the family please visit www.pedersenfh.com.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The Emotion Center of Copenhagen, Denmark, hosted the first international immersion on ISTDP applied to couples and family therapy with Leone Baruh. How did it go? The smiles in the picture say it all. If you are interested in improving your skills with couples and families, save the date for the next immersion in Copenhagen: 5 and 6 April 2019.


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July 31, 2018 by Kat
Aegypt, or The Solitudes, by John Crowley
John Crowley is an underread American writer whose Aegypt series is one of my favorite tetralogies. I am not alone: Michael Dirda has written about it in The American Scholar and Harold Bloom includes it in his Western canon. The quartet consists of Aegypt (reissued as The Solitudes), Love and Sleep, Daemonomania, and Endless Things.
I recently returned to Aegypt, the first novel in the quartet, and loved it. In fact I enjoyed it much more, because the first time I read the books out of order. I began with the last book, Endless Things, because it was widely reviewed in 2007. And then I scrambled to find used copies of the other books. I do not think all were in print then.
Aegypt manages to be one of the most intricate novels of the 20th century, and yet it is also lucid, accessible, and delightfully imaginative. It begins in the late 1970s, but it shifts back and forth in time, even to the Renaissance, and the influence of the 1960s as experienced by the hero Pierce Moffett is powerful. Pierce, a lazy historian who has never finished his Ph.D. dissertation, has been a popular history instructor at Barnabas College in New York. But he has lost both his vocation and teaching job after a mind-blowing affair with a drug-dealing diva. Needless to say, he did not do his best work on cocaine.
Those of us who grew up in the '60s or '70s will recognize the experimental history curriculum at Barnabas College. Pierce is encouraged to change the syllabus to accommodate students of the Age of Aquarius. (By the time I was in college, I was so bored by experimental education that I studied classics.). And reading about Barnabas College reminds me not to take too seriously the changing college curricula today. Everything will change again in 20 years to accommodate a generation who will revolt against political correctness.
Crowley writes amusingly of the college in the '60s,
Barnabas College, like a fast little yacht, had quickly tacked with the new winds that were blowing, even while old galleons like Noate were wallowing in the breakers. Courses in the history, chemistry, and languages of the old everyday world were semester by semester cut to a minimum (Pierce's History 101 course would, eventually, very nearly reach the present day from time-out-of-mind, even as the 200-level courses, out of his provenance, came to deal chiefly not with the past at all but in possibilities, in the utopias and armageddons that all adolescents love). The old standard textbooks were chucked, replaced by decks of slim paperbacks, often the students' own choices, they are after all (said Doctor Socrabasco) paying the bills. Veteran teachers faced with this fell tongue-tied or turned coats garishly; young ones like Pierce, his students' coeval almost, still had trouble facing children who seemed to have come to Barnabas chiefly to be instructed in a world of their own imagining.
And so, having lost his job, Pierce has to find a new job outside of New York, and he can hardly imagine living out of New York. He rides a Greyhound bus to another small college where he has an interview. But when the bus breaks down in the Faraway Hills, he by chance meets his former student Spofford, a Vietnam vet who now raises sheep. And Spofford hosts an outdoor party which has the effervescence of a modern Midsummer Night's Dream.
And then the next day Pierce learns he doesn't have a job interview after all–the letter was some kind of automated mistake, sent after someone else was hired for the job. Spofford suggests that Pierce stay and research regional history. But Pierce returns to New York and gets his old teaching job back, partly because he is inspired to try a new line on history inspired by the alternative culture of the Faraway Hills.
A scholar of the Renaissance, Pierce lands a book contract to write an alternative history of the Renaissance dominated by gypsies, myth, astrology, crystal balls, Shakespeare, hermeticism, the Italian heretic Giordano Bruno, and the occultist John Dee. And he refers to the source of this non-traditional magical history as Aegpt, an imaginary country. And of course he moves to the Faraway Hills to write his book.
The other main character, Rosie Rasmussen, has left her husband and moved with her daughter into an eccentric uncle's house. They run a family foundation, and she is hired to work on some projects, including putting local historical novelist Fellowes Kraft's papers in order . And she is connected to Pierce through Spofford, who is in love with her, and also through Pierce's love of Fellowes Kraft. Rosie is escaping from her problems through reading the complete works of Fellowes Kraft which she finds surprisingly good. (I like the excerpts, too, especially the chapters from a novel about Shakespeare's boyhood.)
And then Pierce discovers a lost manuscript by Kraft about Giordano Bruno, which complements and changes his own work.
Mind you, this book is weird. You'll be happily reading about one character or another, and then suddenly you're reading about Giordano Bruno (and I admit I was not entirely fascinated by him). Overall this is a very enjoyable book. But there are many, many threads, and it is not for everyone.
Crowley has a distinctive American voice. He occasionally descends into sentimentality, and I do think that's an American thing, but he also has an enormous vocabulary and arranges words in beautiful sentences. He is an intellectual who reminds me of Robertson Davies, not in style, but in wide-ranging knowledge of hermeticism. In Davies' The Rebel Angels (which I wrote about here), Renaissance scholars are scrambling and competing to find documents by Rabelais, and there is much involvement with gypsies, tarot cards, and the occult.
The eclectic Crowley has won an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Literary Award and a World Fantasy Award . This year his novel Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr (which I wrote about here) has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award for best novel. I am rooting for him.
| Tagged Aegypt, John Crowley | 8 Comments
In Which I Cannot Find My Copy of Le Fanu's "The Rose and the Key" & Alphabetize Some Books
I cannot find my copy of Le Fanu's The Rose and the Key.
If you have read this mediocre novel, you will wonder why on earth I'm looking for it. My own reaction a decade ago was: "A 400-page poorly-plotted Gothic." Well, even though it is bound to be disappointing, I am a mad Le Fanu fan. Uncle Silas is my favorite Gothic novel, and so I want to reread The Rose and the Key.
Our books used to be well-organized, even catalogued, but then we had a black mold scare in the study. We packed up our books so the de-molding crew could do its thing, which seemed to be painting the walls. (N.B. The CDC website says there is no black mold menace. All houses have mold, and no link has been proved between black mold and any diseases.)
Well, some of our books are still packed in boxes, so I decided to reorganize them. Our library is so huge that I am doing them bookcase by bookcase, alphabetized by author. Each bookcase has its own A-Z shelves.
Here are some messy stacks on the floor. I wonder if I will ever reread George Meredith's Evan Harrington.
All right, they're shelved now. Here is a partial photo of the front of two reorganized double-stacked shelves in one bookcase. Curiously, I have read almost all of them, but I don't feel the urge to weed these (mostly) classics.
Well, we're not ready to go on Booktube with this look. Booktubers have spare, tastefully-ordered, often white-painted bookcases. Their books often match! I should do this by color code.
But I didn't find my copy of The Rose and the Key. Very sad. And reading the e-book is just not the same.
| Tagged Le Fanu, Organizing bookshelves, The Rose and the Key | 14 Comments
The Best Read of the Summer: Conscience by Alice Mattison
Oh no, I think as I riffle through the latest novels: is there anything I want to read?
Perseverance has its rewards. I absolutely loved Alice Mattison's smart, well-written new novel, Conscience. The characters are mature, the structure is brilliantly complex, and Mattison has something to say (so much to say). Told from three points-of-view, Conscience focuses on the consequences of reading, or rereading, a Vietnam-era novel, written by a friend and based on the life of another friend, a conscience-stricken anti-war activist who became a terrorist.
It begins in the present with the musings of Olive Grossman, an editor of crafts books and a biographer of women writers, who says she will never write a memoir, but wants to recall the exact moment of the commencement of a series of painful events. It began, she thinks, when her husband Griff, a high-school principal, asked to borrow Bright Morning of Pain, a novel written by her high school friend, Valerie Benevento. He has always refused to read the book, because it presents a a romanticized view of the actions of their friend Helen, who decided in the '70s that words and demonstrations were not enough to end the war. And Griff and Olive are both characters in the book, too. Indeed, Olive and Griff separated years ago, partly because of their attitudes toward Valerie's book. But Olive has been asked to write an essay about it for a magazine, in conjunction with a publisher's reissuing a paperback with a readers' guide. When Griff insists it's time for him to read it, she is flattered.
What I'm saying is that Griff's need for the book was sexy. It was also something else, though Griff wasn't talking about Val Benevento's book that morning as anything more than a book that mattered to me. Griff too had a connection with this book. Some men would have seized it the day it was published, read it, dismissed or condemned it, or become briefly famous discussing their connection to it. Another sort of man would be more comfortable pretending it didn't matter and could be left unread, and Griff was one of those. This was different—and despite my nervousness, I was curious. Barefoot, I crossed the hall into my study and took my copy of Bright Morning of Pain from the shelf: the hardcover first edition, with its familiar green-and-gold matte dust jacket (green tree, gold lettering, against a blue sky). The paper had soft, frayed edges and a row of tiny parallel tears at top and bottom that looked familiar. I had marked it up—both years earlier when I first wrote about it and later, when I wrote about it again. The older marks were in ink, the newer ones in pencil.
Alice Mattison
But Griff loses the book, and she thinks that he has done it unconsciously on purpose. He says he found it compelling, and that it made him cry. When it finally turns up in the office of Jean, a director of a drop-in center for the homeless, she says she is reading it and doesn't want to give it back yet. Griff, the president of the board, left it in her office when he went in to use her phone. And he needs to recover the book so he can finish it, but mainly because it has his wife's notes in it.
Because of the book, they invite Jean to dinner and she becomes a family friend. She is fascinated by the complexity of Griff and Olive's relationship. She sees that Olive is angry at Griff, and Jean is angry, too, because Griff keeps trying to block new services at the drop-in center, particularly a program that will allow the homeless to sign up for private rooms for an hour or two during the day. Jean and Olive become friends, and Jean sides against Griff on some of the center's issues. Will the marriage thrive or break? And, dangerously, for Jean is the one radical at the dinner table, she begins to date an inconsiderate younger man, Zak, a doctor Olive's daughter used to date, and who Jean knows has the ability of causing great grief.
Oddly, Griff was a radical in the '60s, and believes his own use of a gun at a protest inspired Helen's using a gun at a bank robbery. He feels guilty, but Olive insists that there was no connection, that Helen had long been involved in radical politics before she knew Griff. And Olive has her own guilt: she spent hours talking about Helen to Valerie when Valerie was doing research for the book. And Valerie sold out Helen, Olive, and Griff.
The compulsive readability of Conscience is slightly reminiscent of two other poltical page-turners, Marge Piercy's Vida, a fast-paced novel about a '60s radical who goes underground, and Doris Lessing's A Ripple from the Storm, a brilliant autobiographical novel about Martha Quest's involvement with a small communist group during World War II in Southern Rhodesia. Lessing brilliantly captures the mix of excitement and exhaustion: the intensity and dreariness, the analysis and self-criticism, and the daily meetings (usually more than one) at which there is much talk, little action.
I thought about so much when I read Conscience. There are a few faults: occasionally the writing is choppy, but that fits the flexible form of the book. Can a book be great because of the intensity of the content and history? I think it can, and that is the case here.
| Tagged Alice Mattison, Conscience | 4 Comments
What to Read When You're Ill: Novels with Memorable Scenes of Illness
My husband caught a cold at the office. I blame it on paper clips, post-its, and office supplies.
And now everyone has it. The city is stricken with the common cold. And I'm surprised there's not a quarantine.
And so I am coughing and drinking Cold-Eeze and wondering if there's a yoga pose that will banish the cold. Meanwhile, I'm making a list of novels with memorable scenes of illness. Alas, I cannot remember many scenes with the common cold.
1. In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Bennet catches a violent cold while visiting Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst at Netherfield Park, the home of her future fiance, Mr. Bingley. She becomes so ill that they refuse to let her go home and she sends a letter to her sister Elizabeth.
"MY DEAREST LIZZY,—
"I find myself very unwell this morning, which, I suppose, is to be imputed to my getting wet through yesterday. My kind friends will not hear of my returning till I am better. They insist also on my seeing Mr. Jones—therefore do not be alarmed if you should hear of his having been to me—and, excepting a sore throat and headache, there is not much the matter with me.—Yours, etc."
2. In Turgenev's On the Eve, the heroine, Elena, an intense young woman who wants a purpose, falls in love with Insarov, a Bulgarian revolutionary, and educates herself about the cause. Alas, he catches pneumonia, and though he recovers for a time, he does not live long. Elena is heartbroken but she lives to fight another day.
'Elena!' sounded distinctly in her ears. She raised her head quickly, turned round, and was stupefied: Insarov, white as snow, the snow of her dream, had half risen from the sofa, and was staring at her with large, bright, dreadful eyes. His hair hung in disorder on his forehead and his lips parted strangely. Horror, mingled with an anguish of tenderness, was expressed on his suddenly transfigured face.
'Elena!' he articulated, 'I am dying.'
She fell with a scream on her knees, and clung to his breast.
'It's all over,' repeated Insarov: 'I'm dying… Good-bye, my poor girl! good-bye, my country!' and he fell backwards on to the sofa.
3. In Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, the hero, Hans Castorp, visits his tubercular cousin at a sanatorium in the Swiss Alps, and laughs at the easy life-style there before he, too, is diagnosed with TB.
It would not have taken much for Hans Castorp to be seized by another fit of laughter. "What? You lie out on your balcony rain or shine, night or day?" he asked, his voice wavering on the edge.
4. In The Painted Veil, one of my favorite novels by W. Somerset Maugham, Kitty's husband Walter is furious when he learns she has had an affair. He takes her with him to mainland China, where he must deal with a cholera epidemic. Needless to say no one is safe from the cholera, but Walter and a group of nuns put up a good fight. Kitty wants to help the nuns.
"There is no need to scrub the floors. That is done by after a fashion by the orphans." She paused and looked kindly at Kittty. "My dear child, do you not think that you have done enough in coming with your husband here? That is more than many wives would have had the courage to do, and for the rest how can you be better occupied than by giving him peace and comfort when he comes home to you after the day's work? Believe me, he needs tthen all your love and consideration."
5. I've run out of respiratory illnesses and cholera and am on to a zombie novel. There is some beautiful writing at the beginning of Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth:
My mother used to tell me about the ocean. She said there was a place where there was nothing but water as far as you could see and that it was always moving, rushing toward you and then away.
The narrator, Mary, has grown up in a village behind a fence, to secure the villagers from zombies, known as the Unconsecrated, who infect human beings with their bites. After her mother becomes a zombie, Mary becomes an outcast. The Sisters, a group of secret-loving nuns who know the true history of the world, shelter her for a while after her mother "turns"–her mother chooses to become a zombie rather than to die. Although Mary is badly treated by the Sisters, she learns that the nuns have contact with the outside and that a young woman named Gabrielle has come in with news. Is there any hope? Not much.
6. Graham Greene's A BURNT-OUT CASE deals with leprosy, but I'm too tired to write about it!
THIS IS A SHORT LIST BECAUSE I'M SICK, BUT TELL ME YOUR OWN FAVORITE NOVELS WITH MEMORABLE SCENES OF ILLNESS!
| Tagged A Burnt-out Case, illness, On the Eve, Pride and Prejudice, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, The Magic Mountain, The Painted Veil | 26 Comments
Do You Plan to Read the Man Booker Prize Longlist?
Every year I am enthralled by The Man Booker Prize longlist.
It was announced in The Guardian today. Ah, the joy of reading, or thinking about reading, the longlist of a famous prize!
Bloggers always support the prize. In 2009, Dovegreyreader and several other bloggers read the complete longlist. I, too, managed to read more than half the list that year, including two I had to order from the UK: A. S. Byatt's brilliant The Children's Book (should have won!) and Sarah Hall's remarkable How to Paint a Dead Man.
I lost interest in the Booker in 2011. The judges chose a number of very violent novels, and I caught hell from a small press for a negative review of an extremely violent book (which is why I seldom deal with the divas of the tiny presses).
This year I'm changing all that. I intend to read half the longlist (half of a half will be sufficient). But it is a bizarre-o list, in that I've only heard of three of the books: Rachel Kushner's The Mars Room, Richard Powers' The Trees, and Michael Ondaatje's Warlight. And these three are doing very well here, as I imagine they are in the UK.
The big news: Nick Drasno's Sabrina is the first graphic novel to make the Booker longlist. As my husband says, "That will be this year's winner."
Naturally, the British bloggers are annoyed about the three Americans on the list. I say with a hand on my hip: "Deal with it, honey." For whatever reason, the Man (or Booker or whatever) company is determined to favor Americans. Famous writers have submitted petitions saying
Bring back the British!, and nothing has changed. What's in it for the ManCo I couldn't say.
But surely an American won't win this year, after George Saunders and Paul Beatty's wins in 2016 and 2017. But of course the graphic novel, Sabrina, is by an American.
And now here is the longlist. Let me know if anything looks good, or if you have plans to read the Booker list. Not all titles are available in the U.S. yet.
• Anna Burns, Milkman
• Nick Drnaso, Sabrina
• Esi Edugyan, Washington Black
• Guy Gunaratne, In Our Mad and Furious City
• Daisy Johnson, Everything Under
• Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room
• Sophie Mackintosh, The Water Cure
• Michael Ondaatje, Warlight
• Richard Powers, The Overstory
• Robin Robertson, The Long Take
• Sally Rooney, Normal People
• Donal Ryan, From a Low and Quiet Sea
| Tagged Man Booker Prize longlist 2018 | 8 Comments
Emily Trevelyan's Moral Code in "He Knew He Was Right"
Anthony Trollope's He Knew He Was Right is my favorite novel at the moment, simply because I know it less well than my two other favorites, War and Peace and Villette. And I consider He Knew He Was Right even greater than The Way We Live Now, which is often cited as Trollope's greatest (see Robert McCrum at the Guardian and John Lanchester at NPR). I almost wonder is there is a man/woman split on these two classics: The Way We Live Now is about finance; He Knew He Was Right focuses on marriage. Mind you, I love both novels almost equally. But I am fascinated by Trollope's views on the making and disintegration of engagements and marriages In He Knew It Was Right.
In this brilliant novel, the marriage plot is at its thickest. Can two obstinate people have a happy marriage? A seemingly well-suited couple, Louis Trevelyan, a wealthy Englishman, and Emily Rowley, the daughter of Sir Marmaduke Rowley, the governor of the Mandarin Islands, have fallen in love and are engaged to be married. Emily's mother, Lady Rowley, observes that Louis has one fault: he likes to have his own way.
"But his way is such a good way," said Sir Marmaduke. "He will be such a good guide for the girls!"
"But Emily likes her way too," said Lady Rowley.
And that is the crux of the novel. What happens when a strong-willed couple disagree and will not see each other's point-of-view?
The marriage between Louis and Emily is all billing and cooing at first: they live in an extravagant house in London, and Emily's charming sister Nora lives with them because the Trevelyans can help her make a good match, i.e., with a rich man. Louis and Emily have a little boy who is the apple of their eye.
Suddenly everything changes. Louis becomes pathologically jealous of the frequent visits of Colonel Osborne, a flirtatious 50ish man who is one of Emily's father's oldest friends, as she frequently points out. Emily does think she views the Colonel as a father figure, and he is much too old to be attractive to a woman in her twenties. But she is oblivious of the fact that Colonel Osborne glories in mischief. He caused a rift between another couple, as Louis's friend Lady Millborough warns him, and the jealous husband took his wife to Naples to get away from him. She asks, Couldn't Louis just take Emily to Naples? When Louis decides he and Emily must separate, Lady Millborough is appalled. She tries to talk to Emily, but the talk of obedience to her husband does not go over well. Emily says, "And I will obey Mr. Trevelyan–in anything reasonable,"
Louis, Colonel Osborne, and Emily in the park.
Why is Emily so hard to empathize with? She is right, and her husband is wrong. But in the beginning, she carries things so very far. Louis is tormented with jealousy, but she does nothing to assuage it. Even Nora tells her to take a step back, but Emily fusses, argues, and continues to be defiant, writing notes to the Colonel, in which she implies that her husband is being unreasonable. It drives Louis crazy–literally.
And so the couple separate. Their friend Hugh Stanbury (eventually Nora's suitor) arranges for them to live with his mother and his strong-willed spinster sister, Priscilla, in a nice biggish house in a village. Even here Colonel Osborne cannot leave Emily alone. He enjoys his mischievous flirtation and pays her a visit. There is much gossip in the village after Emily "receives" him, and even Nora is not sure that he should have visited. And the mad Louis, who has hired a detective to keep an eye on her, becomes, if possible, even madder on the point of Emily's "sins" when he learns of the visit. And Priscilla tells Hugh that things have gone too far, what with the Colonel and the detective and the gossip, and that it is not right for them to continue to live with Emily and Nora.
My inner spinster is almost, if not quite, in agreement with Priscilla. On the one hand, I love Nora (if not Emily), and want them to have a home. I also want Priscilla and her mother to have a nice home: before they lived in a tiny cottage. But all the women are (rightfully) uncomfortable about the Colonel's visit. Only Emily seems not to notice his transgressions.
Emily has a strong moral code, and as a feminist I agree that she should be able to see anyone she wants. But in a marriage compromises are made, and where there is jealousy someone usually has to bend. Couples do break up due to jealousy, but not over a father's friend! Colonel Osborne is not worth it.
I do not empathize with Louis Trevelyan, and do not mean to indicate that I do. But Emily is only sympathetic as a mother: her insane husband's kidnapping of their child is one of the cruellest acts in the history of fiction. One question that is never quite answered is whether Louis's madness could have been prevented, or whether the mad jealousy would have manifest itself later with someone else. Trollope seems to have regarded the jealousy as inevitable. I am not sure.
This is a rich novel, with a large cast of characters, most more sympathetic than the Trevelyans, and all at the center of a web of engagements (some broken) and marriages (that we hope will be happy). And he is an unusually effective writer. It drives me crazy when people say Trollope's style is flat. It is simple, unembellished, and seems more modern than that of most 19th-century writers.
| Tagged He Knew He Was Right, Trollope | 13 Comments
Trollope's "He Knew He Was Right" & Literary Links
I am rereading He Knew He Was Right, my favorite novel by Trollope. Is this his masterpiece? Well, I am fond of most of his books, but I do think this is one of the greatest Victorian novels.
This is a timeless and unputdownable novel about a marriage that becomes unbearable because of a husband's pathological jealousy and his wife's rightful insistence that he has no reason to be jealous. But he knew he was right, and she knew she was right, so the couple separates with disastrous results. But I am equally intrigued by the various subplots (which aren't quite subplots, because some get equal time) about other marriages being made, especially a worldly young woman's reluctant falling in love with a penny journalist. If only she could bring herself to marry the rich Mr. Glascock! And what about the two spinsters pushing thirty who are both courting the affections of the vicar?
This is my fourth reading, but knowing the outcome makes no difference to the pleasure.
I started HKHWR last week after finishing Cousin Henry (which I wrote about here) and smugly planned to finish the 800 pages today.
Turns out it is 930 pages, so my calculations were wrong.
Meanwhile, you can read an essay about He Knew He Was Right at the TLS, "Reading Trollope in the Age of Trump."
1. Check out Howard Jacobson's essay, "Why the Novel Matters," at the TLS.
I don't mind you thinking me a scaremonger. Scaremongering has a respectable history. The fact that we're still here after so many prophecies of doom doesn't, to my mind, prove the prophets were mistaken – only that the worst hasn't happened yet. That state of "savage torpor", for example, into which Wordsworth saw the "discriminating powers of our mind" descending – did he get that so wrong? Wrong about the torpid, maybe. We are too hectic to be torpid. We troll, wear trainers and fulminate. But is "savage" so wide of the mark? Wordsworth was describing what made his age unpropitious to poetry. Need I state what makes our age unpropitious to the novel?
2. Obama has posted his Summer Reading list at Facebook. He writes, "This week, I'm traveling to Africa for the first time since I left office – a continent of wonderful diversity, thriving culture, and remarkable stories." And he lists six books by African authors, including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
3. At Tor you can read "Five SFF Books in Which Art Matters," by C. E. Polk.
I love art and illustration. My childhood obsession with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood led to hours with art history texts. I'd need a fortnight just to properly do the Met. And so I love it when SFF books engage with art and culture, providing insight into the history of the world, their aesthetic, and their values. There are plenty of literary works revolving around art, and artists, but SFF provides a number of stories where art matters—to the story, to its society, and to its character.
| Tagged He Knew He Was Right, literary links, Trollope | 6 Comments
The Meaning of Home: 10 Novels about Houses
How does home define us? Is it a house, or an atmosphere?
Proust nibbled a madeleine, but I recalled my Edenic girlhood when I visited my mother's house. The tree-lined neighborhood didn't change much over the years, and the back yard was lush with two apple trees, a weeping willow, a pear tree, and an evergreen. And though I did not read in trees–I was not a character in a Louisa May Alcott novel–I spent hours reading in a lawn chair outside. I remembered home, the trees, and the books simultaneously.
Since my mother's death a few years ago, I have visited my hometown less often. So was home my mother? Or was it the house as well, now sold? Home means something different to me now: home is the present, rather than the present and the past. Today, musing about the meaning of home, I have complied a list of 10 Novels about Houses. Not all are homey, but Godden's especially applies. And do tell me your favorites!
1 A Fugue in Time, or Take Three Tenses by Rumer Godden. This enchanting novel revolves around a house, 99 Wiltshire Place. When the 99-year lease is up, Rolls Dane, the ancient tenant, is enraged that the lease cannot be renewed. And so he sits and contemplates family history. The house, with a plane tree in the yard, and the Dane family are inextricably intertwined. And time overlaps: the present, past, and future happen at once. In a single paragraph, Godden switches from the perspective of a character in the 1940s to that of a character in the 19th century. And, finally, the visit of an American niece changes the house's history. (You can read my post here.)
2 We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. In 2015 I wrote at this blog: "Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in a Castle is a clas-SICK! It is a horror take on Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle. Smith's novel is narrated by the benign, humorous Cassandra Mortmain, an aspiring writer who lives in a dilapidated castle with her eccentric family. The narrator of Jackson's novel, Mary Catherine Blackwood, lives only with her sister in the large country house because the rest of her family is dead from arsenic poisoning…. Beautifully written, funny, horrible, and perfect."
3 I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. I wrote in my book journal in 2012: I try to reread I Capture the Castle once a year. Usually I read it on Midsummer Night's Eve, because there is a very funny scene in which Cassandra celebrates with a bonfire and some witchery. But this year I'm reading it two days after the Fall Equinox–do you think that counts?
The narrator, Cassandra Mortmain, a 17-year-old aspiring writer, "captures" her life in a journal: she and her family live in a mouldering castle, which her father, James, bought on the proceeds of a Joycean novel he wrote. But he has inexplicably stopped writing, sits in the gatehouse all day reading mysteries, and thus the Mortmains have no income to speak of. In a very funny scene early in the book, the librarian, Miss Marcie, tries to help them figure out their earning power, and they are an unpromising lot: Cassandra's stepmother, Topaz, is a former artist's model who loves to commune with nature in the nude; Cassandra's beautiful 21-year-old sister, Rose, wants to marry but knows no men; and their younger brother Thomas is normal but still at school. Only their servant, Stephen, has real earning power: he can do manual labor.
Fortunately their interactions with some new American neighbors provide both free food and romance.
4 The Past by Tessa Hadley. Every sentence of this novel is exquisitely crafted, and every character brilliantly alive. The book has a tripartite structure: "The Present," "The Past," and "The Present." In the first and last sections, called "The Present," four adult siblings chat and bicker during a three-week vacation together in the dilapidated, moldering rectory where their mother grew up and their grandparents lived for decades. They must decide whether to keep or sell this summer cottage. The luminous second section holds it together and elucidates their entwined yet separate views of the past.
From the beginning, the siblings squabble about what the past means. Alice holds forth "in one of her diatribes against modern life" that modern objects are not beautiful and have no meaning. Roland is "wary of [her] evaluative judgements," while Harriet dismisses her romanticism. Fran also gangs up against her.
You can read the entire post here.
5 The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. This lush, poetic masterpiece is laced with magic realism, reminiscent of the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Allende narrates the story of the rise and fall of three generations of the Trueba family in a politically unstable country in South America. I am especially fond of the character Clara, the psychic matriarch who opens their enormous house in the city to eccentrics and adds on rooms and staircases that go nowhere; her daughter, Blanca, a potter who teaches Mongoloids; and her radical granddaughter, Alba, who feeds the homeless and hides refugees in the house after a fascist coup in the city.
6 Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. The first time I read it, I was teaching at a lovely snob school, and so steeped in classics that Brideshead did not measure up. When I reread it in 2005, I admired the exquisite style and the witty dialogue.
In Waugh's great Catholic novel, the narrator Charles Ryder remembers a romantic pre-war past. At Oxford he was befriended by the Catholic aristocrat Sebastian Flyte, and fell in love almost as much with the Flyte's gorgeous house, Brideshead, as he did later with Sebastian's sister Julia, whom Charles later married. The novel begins the 1940s when he is an army captain. His company believes it will be dispatched to the Middle East, but, ironically, when they get off the train, the destination turns out to be Brideshead.
7 The New House by Lettice Cooper. Is it cheating to name a book I barely remember? This was one of my favorite Viragos long ago, and was reissued more recently by Persephone. It is the story of a day in the life of a family as they move from a big beautiful house with a garden to a house overlooking a housing estate. I don't remember more, but I loved it.
8. The House of the Seven Gables by Nathanael Hawthorne. I haven't read this one in years, either. A puritanical classic, the story of the Pyncheon family, who live for generations in a gloomy house cursed by a dead man. How can they get rid of the curse?
9. Slade House by David Mitchell. In this literary horror novel, Mitchell skillfully manipulates the tropes of horror and fantasy. Imagine E. Nesbit's The Enchanted Castle fused with Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.
In this genre-busting page-turner, a supernatural brother and sister prey on the dearest fantasies of gifted human beings after luring them into Slade House. In the opening chapter, the narrator, Nathan, who is autistic with a touch of OCD, and his musician mother have been invited to a concert at Slade House. The problem is they cannot find the house on Slade Alley. Finally, they discover "a small black iron door, set into the brick wall." It is so small they have to stoop. And then they are in a fantasy garden. Nathan discovers paintings of people with no eyes, and when he finds the painting of himself, we know he's in a trap.The novel consists of five linked stories between 1979 and 2015, each with a different narrator who is lured into Slade House.
10. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. The first sentence is unforgettable. "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." Can the unnamed narrator live up to her husband's first wife, Rebecca when she moves into his forbidding mansion, Manderley? A classic.
| Tagged 10 novels about houses, home | 21 Comments
Summer Books in Progress and Mary Stewart's "Wildfire at Midnight"
Oh, dear, I have neglected the blog lately.
This week I have unplugged from electronic devices and devoted time to observing "nature." Often I don't get beyond the yard, and I certainly don't garden, but I agree with Alan Lightman, author of In Praise of Wasting Time, that doing nothing is a good way to replenish creativity. And it's delightful, when it's not too hot, to sit outside with a book. Birds twitter chattily and fly in and out of the trees and shrubs. I don't remember ever seeing so many birds. Perhaps I never looked up from my book!
A little nature goes a long way: naturally I have several books in progress, including an 800-page Victorian novel. Such a satisfying experience! Why were the Victorians such splendid writers? Were they harder workers than modern keyboarders? Look forward to a gossipy post on a three-volume 19th-century novel soon.
You may be surprised to learn that I am also making my way through a few galleys. I don't usually go the Netgalley route, because I tend to get behind, but this time I selected only books I might read anyway and did not go rogue with unknowns. I am currently reading Lucia Berlin's Evening in Paradise: More Stories, a collection of 22 offbeat short stories by a brilliant American writer whose fiction, published mostly by small presses in her lifetime, was revived in 2015 when FSG published A Manual for Cleaning Ladies, Selected Stories (which I wrote about here.) I will post on Evening in Paradise this fall.
My Mary Stewart book of the summer. I adore Mary Stewart, whose Gothic novels were popular in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, and whose heroines were my role models. As a young girl under the influence of Stewart I considered becoming an actress (like Lucy in This Rough Magic), a veterinarian (like Vanessa in Airs Above the Ground), or a teacher at Cambridge (like Rose inThe Stormy Petrel). The Stewart heroine I most resemble is Camilla, the Latin teacher in My Brother Michael, and believe me I never dreamed that would happen. (This is one of my favorites, and I posted about it here.)
Stewart's beautifully-written novels can also be read as travel books, because Stewart's smart, plucky narrators are always on vacation in exotic places and her descriptions of landscape are lyrical. And the romantic plots are both entrancing and formulaic: the heroine (a) travels to Greece, France, Austria, or a gorgeous island to take a break from ordinary life, (b) meets two men, one of whom is a hero, the other a villain, and it takes a while to figure out which is which; and (c) eventually solves a mystery.
This summer I chose to reread Wildfire at Midnight, Stewart's second novel, published in 1956. Is it her best? No, and do not start with it. But it is set in Scotland, and I have always wanted to travel there. I would love to visit Skye in 1953, when the book is set.
The narrator, Gianetta, a model in London, has as much work as she can handle, but her personal life is empty. And don't worry about her being a vacuous beauty–far from it! She's very bright and thoughtful. She misses her ex-husband, a brilliant novelist, and regrets divorcing him: he was unfaithful. In need of a vacation, she desperately wants to leave London, which is crowded with an influx of tourists for the Coronation. So when her parents recommend a hotel on Skye, she takes their advice. The mountainous island is gorgeous, threaded with forests.
This is a murder mystery, but you read it for the atmosphere, the landscape descriptions, and the witty, almost theatrical dialogue, because the plot is slight. One of the guests is a famous actress, Marcia Maling, whose doctor has ordered her to take a break from the stage. When Gianetta learns Marcia has brought a car and chauffeur to Skye, she exclaims, "Is that what you call vegetating?" Marcia replies, "Well, I hate walking."
On her first night at the hotel, Gianetta relaxes. Stewart goes a little crazy with ellipses here, but I love the description of comfortable boredom.
I yawned and stretched a toe to the blaze, and drank some more sherry. Idly I turned the pages of an old society weekly which lay at my elbow. The usual flashlighted faces, cruelly caught at hunt suppers and charity ball,s gaped from the glossy pages… beautiful horses, plain women, well-dressed men… the London Telephone Directory, I thought, would be far more interesting. I flicked the pages. There were the usual photographs of me, this time poised against an Adam mantelpiece, in one of Hugo Montefiror's most inspired evening gowns… I remembered it well, a lovely frock. Here was the theatre page–Alec Guiness in an improbable beard, Vivien Leigh making every other woman within reach look plain, Marcia Maling giving the camera the famous three-cornered smile, staring at vacancy with those amazing eyes….
Gianetta's ex- is staying at the hotel, and will they get back together? What about that nice Alaistair? Will He Be the One? Although this is not a locked-room mystery, there is murder on the mountains and the guests are the main suspects. It is suspenseful, though not Stewart's most original plot.
| Tagged books in progress, Mary Stewart, Wildfire at Midnight | 14 Comments
What New Books Are You Reading? & Three Literary Links
I have perused every Summer Reading article in the U.S. and UK: this is only a slight exaggeration. But as usual I stick to dead writers, and it is a bumpy ride down from the classics to the much-lauded books of summer. Perhaps I'll commit to the Man Booker Prize longlist this year, because I've got to read some good new books!
But I have read two excellent genre books: Tara Isabella Burton's nerve-racking debut novel, Social Creature, a thriller about identity, the internet, and the pursuit of wealth, and Lindsey Davis's Pandora's Boy, the sixth in the charming Flavia Albia mystery series, set in ancient Rome.
And I am loving Victoria Glendinning's new literary historical novel, The Butcher's Daughter, which I found by chance at Barnes and Noble. Glendinning is one of the most brilliant English biographers of Elizabeth Bowen, Trollope, Rebecca West, Vita Sackville-West, and Leonard Woolf. She is also the author of a stunning novel, Electricity, set in Victorian times.
I have begun The Butcher's Daughter and am swept away by the elegant prose. Will Glendinning give Hilary Mantel a run for the money?
Here's a paragraph from the book description at Goodreads:
In 1535, England is hardly a wellspring of gender equality; it is a grim and oppressive age where women—even the privileged few who can read and write—have little independence. In The Butcher's Daughter, it is this milieu that mandates Agnes Peppin, daughter of a simple country butcher, to leave her family home in disgrace and live out her days cloistered behind the walls of the Shaftesbury Abbey. But with her great intellect, she becomes the assistant to the Abbess and as a result integrates herself into the unstable royal landscape of King Henry VIII.
Doesn't it sound great?
What new books have you been reading this summer? And I mean by living writers!
1. At the Guardian, Natalie Haynes answers the question, "What are the best novels about ancient Greeks and Romans?"
She recommends Emily Wilson's new feminist translation of Homer's Odyssey Daniel Mendelsohn's memoir, An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic, and Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad, Lindsey Davis's Roman mysteries (which include Pandora's Boy, above), and more.
2. At the TLS, Mary Beard writes about Robert Harris's Cicero on stage in London. (And she inspires me to want to revisit Harris's trilogy, because I quit halfway through the second novel, Lustrum. I found it boring. I do love Cicero, though, and recommend his brilliant defense of liberal arts, Pro Archia.
Beard writes,
Cicero has a lot to thank Robert Harris for. Many of us have struggled to make the Roman orator interesting for a modern audience. But I fear that my worthy PhD thesis ('The State Religion in the Late Roman Republic: a study based on the works of Cicero") have had far less effect on Cicero's modern fame than Harris's trilogy, Imperium, Lustrum, and Dictator which have given us back a funny, enterprising, self-ironic and clever Roman politician (with a career ending, as they all do (I'm quoting E. Powell here, who knew) in failure. In Cicero's case, that meant decapitation.
3. At Wired, you can read Arielle Pardes's article about an academic conference on emoji. Gotta admit, the only one I use is 🙂
Here's an excerpt from the article:
At Stanford University this week, a collection of linguists, data scientists, computer researchers, and emoji enthusiasts gathered for the International Workshop on Emoji Understanding and Applications in Social Media, itself a smaller piece of the AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media. They brought with them research on how emoji are changing the way we communicate online, how gender and political affiliation are reproduced online through emoji, and the challenges emoji pose for natural-language processing in computers. The assembled academics also debated basic questions about the nature of emoji: Like, if emoji is something akin to a language, why can't anyone agree on what individual emoji mean?
| Tagged literary links, Summmer reading | 12 Comments


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Joyce Strong, 80
Joyce Lee Strong, 80, Roann, died at 3:50 p.m. on Oct. 9 at Autumn Ridge Healthcare Center in Wabash. She was born Aug. 19, 1933 in Wayland, Ky. to John and Virgie (Phipps) Dials.
Posted on 2013 Oct 11
Willis Davis, 83
Willis Hess "Willie" Davis, 83, Wabash, died at 9:48 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 9, at his home. He was born July 24, 1930 in Paintsville, Ky. to Proctor and Ora (Hess) Davis.
William Givens, 75
William Givens, 75, Wabash, died at 6:25 a.m. on Oct. 8 at Millers Merry Manor in Marion. He was born to the late Robert Givens and Irene Ashford in Miami County on June 16, 1938.
Waylon Correll
Waylon Thomas Correll was stillborn on Friday, Oct. 4, at 3:20 p.m. at Kosciusko Community Hospital, Warsaw.
Alice Nance, 88
Alice Jane Nance, 88, Wabash, passed away at 9:39 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 7, at Lutheran Hospital, Fort Wayne. She was born to the late Hugh G. and Louise (Carr) Miller on Aug. 2, 1925 in Wabash.
Laura Harris Bucher, 62
Laura Ann Harris Bucher, 62, Las Cruces, N.M. and formerly of Andrews, died on Sept. 30 at her home. She worked at Dana in Andrews for 17 years, retiring in 2001. She was devoted to her family.
Mary Wilkerson, 88
Mary L. Wilkerson, 88, rural Warren, passed away at 1:40 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 05, at home with family beside her. She was born on Sunday, Feb. 15, 1925, in Huntington County, the daughter of the late Clarence and Clara (Krumanaker) Rochelle.
Marjorie Grover, 79
Marjorie Jane Grover, 79, Wabash, died at 12:20 p.m. on Sept. 28 at Parkview Regional Medical Center in Fort Wayne. She was born Feb. 25, 1934 in Wabash County to Oliver Julius and Addie Marie (Bowman) Eltzroth.


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Statement on the Situation of LGBTQI+ People in Afghanistan
Home The Latest Statement on the Situation of LGBTQI+ People in Afghanistan
In the past few days, the security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated rapidly.
The swiftness of the collapse of the Ashraf Ghani government and immediate attempts of thousands of Afghans to flee, has led to a potential migration and humanitarian crisis. There is great worry that the return of the Taliban will mean the return of grave human rights abuses, including the loss of basic human rights for women and girls, more gender-based violence and the extreme persecution of LGBTQI+ people.
Afghanistan already is not a safe place to be LGBTQI+. According to the U.S. State Department, public attitudes across the diversity of Afghan society towards LGBTQI+ people are extremely negative, which leads members of the LGBTQ+ community to keep their gender identity and sexual orientation a secret in fear of harassment, intimidation, persecution, and death. Now, with the return of the Taliban, there is understandable fear that the situation will worsen.
Rainbow Railroad is concerned that the return to power of the Taliban will lead to instances of extreme violence directed at members of the LGBTQI+ community in Afghanistan. And although it remains to be seen how the Taliban will respond to international pressure to uphold human rights, early signs are not encouraging. Just last month, a Taliban judge threatened that gay men will be crushed to death by toppling walls onto them should the group regain control of Afghanistan.
We are also concerned that this impending crisis will lead to a spike in request for help. So far in 2021, we have received 50 requests for help originating in Afghanistan, and we anticipate an uptick in requests due to the deteriorating security situation that threatens the safety of LGBTQI+ people. Moreover there are a limited number of human rights defenders in the country and civil society engagement is minimal, meaning that support for LGBTQI+ people from within Afghanistan is limited. However, we are currently relying on our deep international network and contacts within the country in order to reach people facing persecution.
Now is the time for governments to step up and support LGBTQI+ Afhgan refugees. On Friday August 13, the Canadian government announced that Canada will resettle 20,000 vulnerable Afghans threatened by the Taliban and forced to flee Afghanistan. The government also committed to introducing a special program to focus on vulnerable groups, specifically naming LGBTQI+ individuals. Rainbow Railroad is looking forward to engaging with the Canadian government to identify and refer LGBTQI+ Afghans in need of emergency assistance. We strongly encourage other governments to do the same.
At the same time however, we must not lose sight of the fact that we need more proactive policies to help LGBTQI+ persons in crisis situations. Whether it is state sponsored crackdowns on LGBTQI+ persons in Ghana or Uganda, the continuous migrant crisis in Venezuela, or refugees in Kenya and Turkey still awaiting resettlement, we need to immediately resume the resettlement of LGBTQI+ refugees – Rainbow Railroad is fielding 3000-4000 requests for help from around the world annually. Many need immediate support.
In the coming days, Rainbow Railroad will be providing further updates about the situation for LGBTQI+ people in Afghanistan on our social media as well as our ongoing work in the region and globally. Please follow us on Twitter and Instagram and like us on Facebook to stay up to date.


A common misconception is that the blades of ceramic knives don't get dull. In reality, their blades do get dull, the difference between them and other types of knives being that ceramic cutlery gets dull after a longer period of time. While it's not as easy to sharpen ceramic knives as it is with stainless steel knives, it's not impossible either.
As a matter of fact, you can do it using different methods, so you have freedom of choice when it comes to this procedure. If you own ceramic knives and you want to be properly prepared when the time comes to sharpen their blades, read the rest of the article to learn what steps you must take in order to make them razor sharp again.
This is the classic method of sharpening a ceramic knife, and it's one that will give you a lot of satisfaction if you are the DIY type of person. Although you could use sandpaper for the task, diamond stones are clearly the smarter choice to go with due to their quality.
All you have to do is to pass each side of the knife's blade over the stone. In case there are large chips in the blade, you must first sharpen it with the 200 grit diamond stone. This is a step that you can skip if damage or dullness isn't that harsh. Afterward, move on to sharpening the blade with the 600 stone, the 1000 stone, and the 1500 stone. Rubbing the blade against all four different grit diamond stones will make it razor sharp, just as it was when you first bought it.
Be aware of the fact that not all electric knife sharpeners are compatible with ceramic knives, so watch out that you purchase the right model. A compatible product, for example, is the Shenzhen Knives SZSHARP that works for both ceramic and stainless steel knives.
Obviously, you have to start with cleaning the ceramic knife. This way, no food residue will be left on the blade and it will be sharpened to perfection.
Now, take your electric knife sharpener out and place it on a flat surface, like the counter or a table. Make sure that the surface is steady to avoid any unpleasant incidents as well.
Now you can move on to position the blade in the sharpener. If you use the knife sharpener that we recommended, place the knife in the slot afferent to the first sharpening stage, and ensure that it makes contact with the stone before you start the operation. After the blade is positioned perfectly, just press the red button to turn it on and slide the blade gently through the slot. Do this for both sides of the blade. When you're done, press the red button to shut it off.
In the second sharpening stage, you simply repeat what you did in the previous step. Of course, when you're done with this step, you must turn the sharpener off by pressing the red button.
Now, all that you must do is repeat the previous two steps 4-5 times to make sure that the blade is sharpened as well as possible.
Of course, you must test the knife's sharpness. We recommend that you cut a tomato or a sheet of paper with it to check the sharpness of the blade. If it cuts the tomato without crushing it or the paper without tearing pieces off, it means that you are done. In case you're not satisfied with the sharpness of the blade, repeat the entire process starting with the first step.
When the process is finally over and the blade is sharp enough to perfectly cut through anything you want, don't forget to clean the knife. This way, you ensure that no ceramic dust will lay on the blade, dust that might contaminate the food that you cut, chop, slice, mince, or dice with it.
After years of first-hand experience with these knives, we recommend that you use an electric knife sharpener for the task of restoring their blade sharpness. This might not be a popular opinion among those of you who like to take matters into their own hands, but the truth of the matter is that electric knife sharpeners provide a faster and easier sharpening of ceramic knives. Undoubtedly, it is safer to sharpen a ceramic knife manually, but if you buy a quality electric sharpener, there shouldn't be any safety issues either.


Thanks for the welsome. Be safe out there!!
your fire department help my unit..
and learned new techniques of work.
you help communicate other firefighter we help my unit whit more material and send my house and going my company..
Thanks for the welcome, Scott.


So I'm walking along the Pyrmont Bridge heading home after work and I see a guy with a Marimekko bag. Its completely black and I think to myself "Who the hell buys a freaking black Marimekko bag?!?". It was the most annoyed I'd been all day.
Some nice closeups of the new Marc Newson designed Nike Zvezdochkas.
Via Alex, exactly what I was looking for, some really nice wallpaper patterns.
…to Bronwyn for getting listed as one of half a dozen of the best web designers in the SMH.
And its nice to see that its available for Linux, Sun Solaris, Apple Mac OS X, FreeBSD, NetBSD, AIX and Windows.
And if you miss out, there's still the desktop wallpaper as well.
Now that Deviant Art seems to be working a bit better, I can actually view more of Gunstar-Red's work. At the moment, I'm totally feeling the gamers series which consists of a US, a UK and a Japanese gamer.
Recently I purchased volume 3 of the Edge Retro special. I really liked the cover art (being the big fan of pixel art that I am!), which I found out was by Gunstar-Red. He also has a great website over at Army of Trolls.


"As If It's Your Last" is an irrepressible '80s-vibing bop that deserves to be huge.
BLACKPINK are hands-down my favorite Korean pop band since 2NE1. They're as infectiously vibrant as CL's posse, with songs that tap into the sounds of current Western Top 40 (a tooting horn here, a dubstep drop there), but find new ways to stitch them together. The four-piece's work with Korean production mastermind Teddy has been some of the most imaginative pop to come out in the past 12 months, brought to life in videos that are even more eccentric. Their label YG must routinely drop six figures on these visuals — how else would they be flying through space, in their Grimes-approved "Whistle"?
The group always racks up YouTube views in the hundred-millions, and that won't change with their kaleidoscopic new one for the '80s-vibing single "As If It's Your Last." There's so much pure GIF-able joy here, from dance-offs in a fuchsia subway station, to Lisa's rapped verse in a CGI tunnel of flame effects, and Jennie hanging up on someone talking nonsense. And for every aegyo moment with cotton candy and ice cream, there's a scene where they confidently wind their waists and drop their butts to the ground.
International music fans seem to be agreeing, too. At time of writing, "As If It's Your Last" is at number one in Korea, but also sits at number 31 on U.S. iTunes — the highest ever ranking for an all-woman K-pop act on the chart. Watch it above, and if you missed them the first time around, follow it up with the rest of their videos here.


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PAY AS YOU GO TELEVISION system shut down Back to previous
Information center > PAY AS YOU GO TELEVISION system
PAY AS YOU GO TELEVISION system
PAY GO TV ,also said PAY AS GO TV,Competition between free-to-air and pay-TV services, which has intensified considerably during the past few years, is driving the need for a mass-market strategy.
Over-the-top (OTT) services and innovative 'TV everywhere' offerings are hot topics in the pay-TV sector, even though the monetisation potential for such services continues to be unclear. By contrast, prepaid 'pay-as-you-go' (PAYG) services could have more significant monetisation potential.
The prepaid PAYG model is already very prevalent in the mobile world, and is often cited as a key driver of the tremendous growth in mobile subscriber bases – particularly in emerging countries. In the pay-TV sector, pay-per-view (PPV) premium content has been around for years – almost as long as pay TV itself in the USA. However, beyond premium content, pay-TV operators have not launched significant PAYG services.
Pay-TV services have predominantly employed a subscription model, largely because they were initially positioned as a luxury for high-income segments. This approach also has the benefit of simple billing requirements, because service providers tend to offer only ten packages at the most.
However, as new entrants enter the market and technology infrastructure improves, there is a growing recognition that price skimming or 'creaming' the market is not a sustainable strategy. Instead, a mass-market strategy is likely to be more effective in the long term, particularly as a means of building upon the economies of scale for content. Competition between free-to-air (FTA) and pay-TV services, which has intensified considerably during the past few years, is also driving the need for a mass-market strategy. Pay-TV operators need to reach a wider customer base than ever before or risk FTA entering and winning a substantial share of the market. The economies of scale achieved for the manufacture of set-top boxes (STBs) and satellite dishes have also made it possible to service low-end segments more profitably, with a shorter payback period.
These market trends have enabled a new business model: a hybrid of pay TV and FTA TV, whereby customers buy equipment to watch basic channels and pay for additional content on a PAYG basis, either in the form of an entry-level subscription or add-on packs. This approach allows consumers to gain a wider choice of TV channels without committing to a monthly subscription. In a recent survey of international case studies, Analysys Mason identified a range of potential target segments for PAYG pay-TV services (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Target segments for PAYG pay-TV offerings:
When launching a PAYG proposition, pay-TV providers need to consider the possibility of some cannibalisation, while ensuring that the offering is attractive enough to win new subscribers and competitive against new entrants or FTA. The content choices offered should not be more flexible than those for subscription packages because this would increase the possibility of cannibalisation. The PAYG content may also drive take-up of the STBs themselves, which could create upsell opportunities in the long term.
When you have a limited number of TV choices, you spend more time watching the shows that you can lose yourself in — and less time channel-surfing
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High Culture — August 16, 2017
What You're Missing at the Start of Every John Oliver Episode
The title sequence to Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is memorable for its minimalistic, sleek design. But what do those graphics actually say?
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When producers from HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver approached Trollbäck + Company to design the introduction sequence for the show, they knew exactly what they didn't want the firm to create: another news show parody package, a la the shows of Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert. That'd been done.
So the firm instead created a sleek, minimalistic sequence featuring a rotating suite of graphics accompanied by faux (and sometimes real) Latin labels.
Example: Hostus Mostus, John Oliver.
Graphic designer Kelli Miller, currently of And/Or, told Art of the Title about the inspiration for the sequence:
"The concept that we ultimately went with was inspired by cabinets of curiosity and encyclopedic reference books. I was thinking about how all these events, people, and cultural touchstones are examined, dissected, and kind of fantastically wonderful when you look at them through the lens of humour and satire."
Before settling on the encyclopedia-inspired aesthetic, designers considered other looks, like the one below.
The title sequence is now a signature part of the show, but it moves so quickly that it's hard to register all the visual jokes, like the photo of Vladimir Putin with the label Potus Operandi.
…or Logos Marlborum.
The title sequence's key feature, however, is the easter egg that appears briefly just before the start of the show, typically making a topical joke about the news of the week. For the July 30 episode, the joke was about the ouster of Reince Priebus from the Trump administration.
Miller said the easter eggs help keep the show's intro fresh and exciting.
"That's really awesome because sometimes TV shows don't have the staff to manage that sort of thing, but they did a really great job of carrying through the vision."
"The density of the visual language and these updatable easter eggs really makes it fun to watch every week rather than the kind of thing that you might want to skip over after several viewings."
Translation: Love conquers Pence.
A small tribute to Adam West from the June 11 show.
A joke about student debt just in time for graduation.
The most recent episode on August 20 paid tribute to Dick Gregory, American civil rights activist and comedian, who passed away on August 19, 2017.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver isn't the only show to change up its title sequence.
Earlier this year, Reddit user RohitMSasi shared screenshots of the title sequences of HBO's Game of Thrones seasons 6 and 7, noting a key difference between the two: the seas on either side of The Wall appear to be frozen in the newest version, but not in season 6. Who cares? Obsessive fans, sure – but also White Walkers seeking a strategic entry into the northern regions of the Seven Kingdoms.
It's possible that the convention of the TV title sequence will someday become obsolete. Its original function was to let viewers know what show they're watching, but that seems less necessary given that people don't really stumble into watching random TV shows on streaming services like they might have while flipping through channels.
The people behind The Office, for instance, shortened the show's title sequence midway through the series' run, ostensibly to give editors more wiggle room. On Netflix, "The Office" doesn't even have a title sequence if the episode doesn't feature a cold opening.
Viewers can also manually skip title sequences now. Netflix has already added a "skip intro" feature that its users seem to like, and other streaming services could follow suit. Still, there will probably always be a cohort of fans willing to endure title sequences in search of easter eggs. And Reddit karma.
comedydesigngame of thronesgraphic designhboJohn Oliverlast week tonightlatinopening creditswhite walkers
MIT engineers design touch-sensing glove that 'feels' pressure and maps stimuli
The design could help restore motor function after stroke, enhance virtual gaming experiences.
Just four colors are enough for any map. Why?
The four-color theorem was one of the past century's most popular and enduring mathematical mysteries.
Welcome to the United Fonts of America
At least 222 typefaces are named after places in the U.S. — and there's still room for more.
Modular construction: Using Lego-like blocks to build structures of the future
Buildings don't have to be permanent — modular construction can make them modifiable and relocatable.
This programmable fiber has memories and can sense temperature
Researchers were even able store and read a 767-kilobit full-color short movie file in the fabric.
Cohousing Could Help Solve Some of the World's Most Pressing Problems
Though it looks promising, there are some issues to work out before it becomes widespread.


I watched the new HBO movie Queen Elizabeth I this weekend, and like Elizabeth, the 1998 theatrical film, it didn't shrink from showing people being tortured, or executed in ways that definitely qualify as cruel and unusual punishment. Once again, I was struck by the brutality and the religious intolerance prevalent in 16th century England. In the movie, Elizabeth herself is portrayed as open-minded, tolerant and compassionate, and extremely reluctant to resort to torture or killing, but willing to do so when necessary to quell rebellion. I thought about how 500 years later, this kind of religious bigotry and horrifying tribal violence is still going on in Africa and the Middle East, where people really believe they have a right to kill each other for their religion or ethnicity, and where women are mere possessions, not human beings. I wonder to what degree the filmmakers made a conscious choice to emphasize the parallels with the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the violence in Darfur. Perhaps this is their subtle hint to Tony Blair and George Bush–those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
The whole media circus surrounding Angelina Jolie is insane, but for once, I think celebrity obsession may actually do something more than enrich an already obscenely wealthy person. Jolie is intelligent and well spoken, and her genuine knowledge of and interest in the plight of those less fortunate not only serves to draw attention to refugees, but also perhaps to shame us into action. If a movie star can empathize with the poor and miserable, then why can't we, too? I believe that the key to stopping this continuing horror is in giving Africans the knowledge and resources to create their own jobs, grow their own food, and run their own governments, and in persuading educated Africans to stay and work in their home countries. Free or cheap grain from the U.S. only means that African farmers cannot make a living by selling their own grain, so it discourages independence and further destabilizes poor countries. All of the money and Peace Corps volunteers in the world will not be enough if we do not show Africans the methods and rewards of becoming self sufficient.
Why I hated "Mona Lisa Smile"


Bioglass was invented by US scientist Larry Hench in 1969. Hench was inspired by a chance conversation on a bus with an army colonel who recently had returned from the Vietnam War. The colonel told Hench that while modern medical technology could save lives on the battlefield, it could not save limbs. Hench decided to shelve his research into intercontinental ballistic missiles– and instead work on designing a bionic material which would not be rejected by the human body.
Hench ultimately took his research to London, and it has been in Britain where some of the most revolutionary bioglass innovations are being made in fields from orthopaedic surgery to dentistry.
Over the last 10 years, surgeons have used bioglass in a powdered form, which looks and feels like a gritty putty, to repair bone defects arising from small fractures. Since 2010, this same bioglass putty has hit the high street as the key component in Sensodyne's Repair and Protect toothpaste, the biggest global use of any bioactive material. During the brushing process, the bioglass dissolves and releases calcium phosphate ions which bond to tooth mineral. Over time, they slowly stimulate regrowth.
But many scientists feel that the current applications of bioglass are barely scratching the surface of what could be possible. New clinical products are being developed which could revolutionise bone and joint surgery like never before.
Sitting in his office in Imperial College's Department of Materials, Jones is holding a small, cube-shaped object he's dubbed 'bouncy bioglass'. It's similar to the current bioglass but with a slight twist: subtle alterations in the chemical composition mean it's no longer brittle. Instead it bounces,"like a kid's power ball" as Jones describes it, and it's incredibly flexible.
The point of this is that it can be inserted into a badly broken leg and can support both the patient's weight and allow them to walk on it without crutches, without requiring any additional metal pins or implants for support. At the same time, the 'bouncy bioglass' also will stimulate and guide bone regrowth while slowly, naturally assimilating into the body.
Further alterations to the chemical makeup of bioglass produce a different form which is much softer and has an almost rubbery feel. It feels almost like a piece of squid at a seafood restaurant. This bioglass is designed for possibly the holy grail of orthopaedic surgery: cartilage repair.
Right now, surgeons attempt to repair damaged cartilage in arthritic hips or damaged knee joints with a fiddly procedure called microfracture. This involves smoothing over the damaged area to expose the bone underneath, then pricking it to release stem cells from the bone marrow which stimulate repair. But this results in scar cartilage and within a few years, as many athletes have found, the original problem returns.
As a solution, Jones is looking to produce bioglass which can be 3D-printed and then slotted into any hole in the cartilage. For the cells to accept it, the material must retain all the natural properties of cartilage. To test its effectiveness, Jones uses a simulator that has human knee joints from cadavers donated for medical research.
This same bioglass could find an additional use in aiding people with chronic back pain due to herniated discs. At the moment surgeons treat this by replacing the dysfunctional disc with a bone graft which fuses the vertebrae in the back together. But while this takes away the pain, it results in a considerable loss in mobility. Instead, a bioglass implant could be printed and simply inserted to replace the faulty disc.
"It seems the obvious thing to do," Jones says. "So far nobody has been able to replicate the mechanical properties of cartilage synthetically. But with bioglass, we think we can do it.
Using man-made materials which can fuse to the body may seem far-fetched – but it is appearing to be a more and more likely component of future medicine. Already, millions of people brush their teeth with it. And that may just be the start.


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Ten desi (traditional) Indian games that will take you back to your childhood
Are we introducing the desi/traditional Indian games to the next generation?
#desigames
Traditional Games of India
India has a wonderful blend of dialects, cultures, and traditions that makes it unique in the world. The same holds for sports and games. Most people are unaware of how amazing Indian traditional games are. But with technological advancements, the current generation is glued to screens, finding entertainment in gadgets and technology. My mind wanders back to my childhood when there were no fancy gadgets, but we were never bored. It was the traditional games that occupied a significant portion of our time. They gave us a childhood that shaped our lives forever. So, it's a good idea to bring back our traditional Indian games and introduce them to this generation. Those who think the games are too old-fashioned for today's generation should think again since they provide the following benefits:
Physical activity: Children today lack physical activity, something most of these games promote.
Team-spirit: The games encourage children to play together, often in a team, which improves their social skills.
Cultural values: Children can connect with their culture and to their parents' childhoods through these games.
Cost-saving: There is rarely any expense associated with these games, as they require little to no equipment.
So, which are these traditional games that we are talking about? In what ways do they win over the Candy Crushes of today? Let's explore 10 such traditional games in India that have defined childhood for generations.
Lakhoti or Kancha (Marbles)
Played with cute little marbles, Kancha or lakhoti is played by children all over the country. Also known as golli or goti, this game is believed to have originated during the Harappan age. The game is about striking a particular marble amidst many, using another marble. Though the game doesn't include much physical movement, it helps increase focus and attention.
Stapoo (Hopscotch)
Surely everyone's favourite, this traditional game is also known as Nondi and kith kith. There is a kind of grid ladder drawn on the ground with numbers written on it. Then a stone is thrown on the numbers and the player has to hop to the numbered block without touching any other blocks or edges. In addition to being a good physical exercise, this game also helps to maintain balance and coordination.
Gilli Danda
Okay, Gilli danda is one of the most popular traditional games in India, synonymous with playing on the streets. Using the Danda, a big stick, a small oval-shaped stick called Gilli is flicked up from the ground and then struck while still in the air. Right after hitting the Danda, the player needs to run to a certain point before the Gilli is caught by the opponent. Games like this are good for strengthening eye-hand coordination. It inspired western games like cricket, baseball and softball.
Chaupar
Chaupar, also known as Pachisi is a board game that translates to 'twenty-five'. It is quite similar to modern-day Ludo but is a bit more complex. The game has mention in the Mahabharata and is famous among Mughal kings. It is played by four players and requires a special cross-shaped board made of fabric. The counters or pawns are usually cowrie shells. The centre of the board is considered 'Home' and each player has to ensure that all his or her pawns reach home before the others. This game involves a good deal of strategy and planning.
Lattoo
Lattoo or the spinning top is the game of wrapping a rope around a top and then pulling the rope to make it spin for as long as possible. It is made from clay and wood.
Gutte
Gutte more commonly known as five stones has many variations across the country. The game involves five stones, preferably with a smooth surface. The objective of the game is to pick up all the stones while spinning one in the air. It involves a good deal of hand-eye coordination, concentration, speed and reflexes. The game gets challenging as it progresses, and also a lot more fun!
Lagori
You must have heard this game by the name of Sitoliya, pitthoo, lingocha or seven stones/tiles. All you need is a stack of stones and a ball to play this game. The game is played in teams, and each team gets three turns to knock down the pile of stones. Team members must try to put the stack together before getting hit by the ball. This is a fun game that truly celebrates team spirit and encourages bonding within the team.
Aankh Micholi
Blind Man's Buff is basically Aankh Micholi. In this game, a player is blindfolded and has to catch the other players who run around him. As other players move around, they sometimes yell, making the blindfolded player even more confused! It is excellent for developing sensory skills and focus as well as for strengthening spatial and directional skills.
The list of traditional games would not be complete without mentioning the game which originated in India during prehistoric times. It is played by two teams without any equipment. During the match, each team tries to break into the opposing team's area and touch as many players as possible while holding their breath and reciting 'kabaddi-kabaddi' continuously. Players who are 'touched' are out. A test of strength and agility as well as strategy, this game keeps everyone focused.
Kho-Kho is a popular team game played in schools and at large gatherings. This game is an Indian variant of 'Run Chase', in which players have to run behind another player in order to touch them. Players are divided into two teams and the first team sits on the ground alternately facing opposite directions. In an attempt to avoid being touched by the opponent, the other team runs around this group.
Did some of these games bring back memories of your childhood? Mine certainly did. There were many others that we played in classrooms like Raja Mantri Chor Sipahi, crosses and naughts, FLAMES, name place animal thing. In the lunch break there was chain-chain, piththu, four corners crocodile-crocodile and so on. Do children today play these games? Fortunately many do and good samaratians across India are promoting fitness and health the desi way!
Leading NGO Yuva Unstoppable has been putting efforts into sports infrastructure development in government schools. They're making sure that not just equipment but also training is facilitated. They're developing multipurpose sports grounds in government schools across cities where they can play games like Basket Ball, Kho-Kho, Kabbadi, Volleyball, Badminton etc. Check out the pictures of the happy children!
These traditional games have a rustic and local flair to the techniques and methods. The names and the style of playing are heavily influenced by the local, regional, and cultural nuances of its surroundings. Hence, these games often become more than mere time passers. They become means of building teams, building characters, building strategies, and understanding true core values more deeply.
Written by Richa Agrawal — A mother, homemaker, and writer, I enjoy doing anything creative, be it writing, art & craft, or decorating my own space. Having grown up in different cities throughout the country, interacting with people from different cultures and languages fascinates me. 'Desi' by heart (though global by thoughts), I understand many languages but have a hard time speaking them. I am now trying my hands on Gujarati and Marathi.
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