There are many things parents worry about with their first child.  Will it be healthy?  Will it look like mum or unfortunately like dad?  I find myself sympathising with Dewey and as an extention my friend when one of your concerns is will the child display superpowers.  Thank you Unshelved for this timely service annoucement.

 ”Find new words… make up new words… abbreviate for fun…” Stephen Fry

I love language, but I can’t say I’ve got around to making up new words. I remember a friend at school who’s sheltered life didn’t allow her the usual array of swear words and expletives. Instead she had made up her own. Rumbugs when things went wrong as in, “Oh, Rumbugs I forgot to carry the one”, and Wally-wa as an expletive when something shocked or surprised her. Well known for her words, she did receive light-hearted teasing but she never gave them up for the more conventional phrases.

I was listening to a podcast by Stephen Fry about Language. He was asked if he could make up a word what would it be and how would it be used.  And it seems that Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie have enriched our language with a word that is now accepted in the sound industry.

Stephen and Hugh have done a lot of voice over work in their careers. They were in a recording studio and the sound engineer was picking up a bit of air sounds from their speech and wanted the foam wind-sock that goes over the microphones to stop that sounds getting to the microphone itself. One of them asked the engineer what the name of that device was, but the engineer didn’t know, as far as he knew it didn’t have one.

Of course that wasn’t good enough for Stephen and Hugh who muddle around with sounds until they came up with the word, spoffle.

Spoffle, the grey spongy baffle placed over a microphone to prevent unwanted noises entering a recording.

They would use it whenever they went to a recording session and though engineers had never heard of the word before, in the context of the studio it made sense and it hardly ever had to be explained.

 Then one day they were at a studio they had never been to before working with engineers they had never met. When a problem with the recording was discovered the engineer piped-up, “No worries, I’ll just pop on a spoffle.”

Victory!  The word had spread through the industry and returned to its parents. Don’t believe me? I could tell you to look it up in a dictionary, try the Macmillian which is considered the Australian standard.

Of course, I have to think up a few words. I want to think up new ways of describing old concepts or maybe a word to describe something that has never had a word to make it real. That was an idea that came up in the podcast, from the book 1984. Would we know what freedom or justice were if the words did not exist? Sounds like it may be our civic duty to make up words to describe what is important. At least to us.

 Worffling: when doing anything besides your work, at work

Here are another persons words, I think copropody needs to get into general useage. Happens all the time.

Do you have any words?

And then I think, What Would Gully Do?

Let’s face it, Gully Foyle is a animal of a human being. A wretch whose gutter talk is a symptom of a life he’s never tried to improve. And then circumstances lead him to spend 170 days, ‘…dying and not yet dead..’, alone in space. It’s here that his desires are honed to one point, survival, five minutes at a time. He doesn’t stir from this accidental prison until a passing ship ignores his distress beacon.

Instead of empty animal instinct, a passion for revenge burns in Gully. It propels him to save himself, remake his life in amazing in dramatic ways and eventually become a type of saviour to all of humanity when he hands “… life and death back to the people who do the living and the dying”.

The Stars my Destination is more than just a transformation of an individual, the story is a portrait of a civilization under the influence of space colonisation and instantaneous travel. I think this is why the book is still fresh and undated. Unlike many science fiction novels that spend a lot of time on justifying their scientific assumptions, this book just tells us the story of people. What one man would do placed in an impossible situation and makes you wonder what would a whole civilization do under similar circumstances?

Gully makes a speech to the people of the Earth near the end in the gutter speak that he starts the story with:

“You pigs, you. You rut like pigs, is all. You got the most in you, and you use the least. You hear me, you? Got a million in you and spend pennies. Got a genius in you and think crazies. Got a heart in you and feel empties. All a you. Every you… …Take a war to make you spend. Take a jam to make you think. Take a challenge to make you great. Rest of the time you sit around lazy, you. Pigs, you! All right, God damn you! I challenge you, me. Die or live and be great. Blow yourselves to Christ gone or come and find me, Gully Foyle, and I make you men. I make you great. I give you the stars.”

Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination

This speech is what the story is about for me. Making the most of your life. We’re given so much but most of us do so little. Gully who starts the story with nothing, eventually would do astounding (awful) things that would change his society. Good or bad? Well that’s up to those who live isn’t it?

The main gateways for this story is undoubtedly character but there is a clever use of language as well that shows the quality of Bester’s storytelling. At the beginning the storytelling is brief, striped of description. As Gully learns and develops so does the writing. I don’t usually feel compelled to give books to people to read but this is one I’ve already handed on.

Yes, I lived a deprived childhood without Harper Lee’s influence which is a shame.  Adults and children see things differently; it would have been good to contrast the experiences.  Still, my virgin dip into To Kill a Mockingbird was not a disappointment. 

To Kill a Mockingbird is a simple story.  There are no multiple parallel plots (unless you count the Boo Radley pestering as a separate plot), no edgy, gritty pseudo-realism.  This is the story of a town at a difficult time seen through the lives of a small family.  It’s real; most people live their lives grit free, at least with the help of a vacuum cleaner.  They only edges they worry about are on the sharp kitchen knives.  The Finches are us, just trying to make sense in a world that has no sense at all.

I was scanning through reviews on Good Reads and was surprised that one bad review Atticus was too good to be true, the perfect father.  Though Atticus is a very moral man who contrasts well against the prejudice and hypocrisy of the town, he is not a good father to his daughter, but he tries his best.  Don’t all parents. 

Harper Lee’s writing is delicate only giving the briefest of descriptions and leaving the rest up to the reader to fill in.  Characterisation is perfect with a good contrast shown between the childish Scout, her maturing brother, Jem and the adult Atticus.  Jem gets adult stuff that flies over the head of Scout, Scout is annoyed when Jem doesn’t enjoy their games anymore.  Atticus tries to steer a course that he and his family can live with through adult prejudices, racial and moral.  This books is so quotable (I have bookmarks sticking out of mine at all the most notable) words are used skillfully, not a wasted one.  As a result language has to be a key doorway for this book. 

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

What I love most about this story is that it speaks to so many people regardless of age or class or race. Again, check out the reviews on Good Reads you’ll see reviews from all over the world in as many languages as this book has been printed in.  It shows what scouts says is true, “Folks is folks”.  If it doesn’t speak to you, you are sadly in a minority and I’d suggest that this book may be speaking to you the loudest…and you don’t like what it has to say.

Today I came across Shadow Cities, a free App for the iPhone which claims to be a MMO that used augmented reality.  Intrigued I downloaded the game to see what it was all about. The game starts with a little history, 600 years ago the magic was torn out of our world and now it seems it’s back and if we don’t do something about it, it will destroy the world.

The game asks first what faction would you like to belong, either the Animators or the Architects.   If you wish to play with a friend you’ll want to join their faction otherwise it doesn’t matter for the story (unless you like to roll-play either a modern melder of magic and machine or an adherent to the ancient ways).   The game itself is overlayed a map of your local area so all town centres, landmarks and street names are  Town Centres are denoted as gateways that can be owned by a Shadow Lord (of either faction) or be neutral.

I’ve only bashed up spirits at the present but the idea is to form a team and take over and hold areas for the faction.  If you want a tiny idea of the game check out this Youtube video.  Using symbols drawn on the screen you cast spells of attack, healing, ward and many others.  As you do spells you use up mana which you collect by performing tasks for the faction.  Of course you also gain experience and Attribute Points that allow you to modify your character.

Spirits many ever increasing sizes and give equivalent amounts of experience and energy.  Though you can tackle anything that comes into your area but spirits (denoted by numbers of stars) are heavy hitters and you will very quickly find yourself banished.  The mana and health do regenerate so you can sit back knock off small fry spirits for experience and not use up valuable vials of mana that you collect through the game.

As you move around in the real world so too do you change locations in the game so changing the environment you find yourself.  It could be interesting if you’re an Animator who’s workplace is owned by the Architect faction!

Battle is a little hairy as your screen distorts and the vibrator whirls informing you of a hit.  There’s no doubt when you take damage and the spirits can deal some nasty blows.  You don’t die in the game but are banished for a small amount of time which could be life and death to a party if you’re out just a few seconds too long.

Shadow Cities is a fascinating game that is sure to inspire many posts and fan fiction spinoffs.  If you’d like to sign up check out the app store or by following this link and remember the only right side to choose is the Animators.

122 years ago a first edition copy of Insectivorous Plants by Charles Darwin was borrowed from Camden School of Arts library.  As with many library books, Insectivorous Plants didn’t make it back into the collection and was obviously presumed lost by generations of librarians.

Sometime in the 1950s the book ended up in the personal collection of aUniversityofSydneyveterinarian whose recent retirement that meant that much of this collection ended up at the university library.  From there it was a short trip back toCamdenlibrary, now a public library totally an estimates $35,000 overdue fine.

To the library this story was noteworthy to headline their amnesty starting next month.  But something about this story wasn’t going to let it die.  It was picked up one of the biggerSydneypapers which launched it internationally onto Fox News and Time magazine news site.

All library staff know of materials that have gone mysteriously missing.  It’s nice to know that it’s not just library staff that celebrate in one of these items surprise return.

 Macarthur Chronicle

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