Nelson Lowhim's Blog, page 43

My First Major Writing Award!

First Major writing award! Thanks to OJAL & Pamelyn Casto for choosing my work. That one piece went through several changes. Still wondering if I should create one for the now time. Enjoy it and thanks to all my readers!
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Rummy Done

Rummy's dead. Plenty of snark out there in the internets, and I'm a big fan. The holier than thou, "don't dance on his grave" from the right, who enjoy grave dancing as a matter of policy, is less enjoyable. But the scream machine that is social media (and call and reponse and other effects of the algo-machine) goes on. Your thoughts below. 
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Ah Manchin

Here it is, the proof that Manchin is only delaying for the rich lobbyists paying him. A Dem, mind you. All the social media theater can be boiled down to this one thing which is wealthy entities pulling the strings. Huh, so if you're in WVA or TX or AZ call your Senator and get everyone you know to call and crack the democratic whip. Only thing we have at this rate. 
Have a new short over at Patreon. One started by reading my wooden book of black and white animals to my son. Had to make a story of it, right?
peace ya'll. Enjoyed it? Share it via email, facebook, twitter, or one of the buttons below (or through some other method you prefer). Thank you! As always, here's the tip jar. paypal.me/nlowhim Throw some change in there & help cover the costs of running this thing. You can use paypal or a credit card.

108

degrees F. Roads buckling under the heat. So it goes. Many places get over 100 around the world, but here in Seattle we don't have the Acs installed and the buildings just seem to absorb all kinds of heat (great for other times of the year but not now). So we've got the record and roads are buckling from the heat and people are putting cats in fridges and here we are. 
Climate change is still coming and we still have the choice of making things better or worse than what they are. As with covid, I"m guessing a lot of people don't have it in them. We'll see. Stay safe. 
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Some Chomsky.

Good article by Chomsky & Alice Walker on the Assange trial. Here in the states too many on the center left of things have accepted the demonization of Assange (to include dropped rape charges that, magically he's not going to trail for) to the point of blaming him for Trump. This shortsighted foolishness and lack of logical thinking speaks to a sad state of affairs. Note that it's Trump who had him arrested and it's probably a bipartisan agreement here. 

These techniques are not new. After Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to journalists to expose the US government’s lies about Vietnam, the Nixon administration’s “White House Plumbers” broke into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office in search of material that could be used to discredit him. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was falsely portrayed as collaborating with the Chinese, then the Russians. Obsession with military intelligence analyst Manning’s mental health and gender identity was ubiquitous. By demonizing the messenger, governments seek to poison the message.

The prosecution will be all too happy when coverage of Assange’s extradition hearing devolves into irrelevant tangents and smears. It matters little that Assange’s beard was the result of his shaving kit having been confiscated, or that reports of Paul Manafort visiting him in the embassy were proven to be fabricated. By the time these petty claims are refuted, the damage will be done. At best, public debate over the real issues will be derailed; at worst, public opinion will be manipulated in favour of the establishment.

Indeed. 
Also a piece on how we should get inquiries into the failure of our gov covid response. The ICC should indeed be called into it. 
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Reading some Shorts. Lowhim Smack down moment.

By Kate Atkinson. Not done with it yet, but I suppose I'll try her novels which are supposed to be great. Yeah, that means I'm not digging these tales all that much. Some start with a great bit of hope then devolve from there. JFc I hope that I'm not that turgid of a short story writer. 
WEll, there's no analysis like that of others, rather than me trying to blow smoke up my own... Here's a take from "Cabin Tale". 
the smackdown:

"A Cabin Tale tells the story from the point of view of a boy who is in a hunting cabin with his grandfather. The boy is scared, worried about his dad who has gone out in the night. The story here focuses on the boy's fear and the grandfather trying to comfort him. It then goes into a story that the grandfather tells the boy, about ancient mythology and beliefs of the supernatural. The story within a story, told by the grandfather, just seems strange and the whole thing doesn't really go anywhere. 
The writing captures the scared feeling of the boy really well. For that it is written really well. The story itself isn't overly engaging - I really enjoyed the first half, showcasing the relationship between the boy and grandfather, but the grandfather's story was less interesting."

Damn, son, ripping me up here. [1]
Here's some "Satan's Plea" smack down. 

Nice little story with good narration

Satan's Plea by Nelson Lowhim tells the story of how Satan experienced life in heaven, and his views on why he was expelled. 
Minor spoiler alert: He thinks God is a selfish person who bullies angels into following order, is short sighted, and in general a bad leader and role model. As a result, Satan and a few other angels gather together and starts working towards a better world. 

It is a funny take on the biblical story of Satan, and should be required reading for christians, since it is clear that the one-sided take they trust in, could in fact be quite different. While not exactly a deep tale, it just gives us a short insight into Satans character and not much else, and is therefore not very surprising. 

It is quite well written, and I would recommend it for anyone looking for a short, and somewhat humorous, story to lighten up their day. It is a relatively short audiobook (1 hour and 5 minutes), and the narration by Mark Lindgren was done really well. He set the mood perfectly with a very deep voice, and had a nicely tonal variety that helped the story along. 

I end up with 3/5 for a well written and coherent story, with great narration, that doesn't push any boundaries (Well, perhaps for christians). Had the story been longer and slightly more complex, I would most likely have given it another star. 

Damn. Nice little story? That's harsh. This one's trying to be nice so it cuts that much more. Another feel good [2] cleanse. 
And finally, CityMuse , a novel:

This was about a man who was interested in a woman, we see a lot of the negative aspects of humanity as Matt lusts after her and shows his greed and selfishness throughout the tale. The constant referals to her body and his reactions was a bit much and the story just didn't seem that deep or fulfil the blurb. It was an ok tale about some flawed people but nothing more. 

Well, fuck, that's harsh too. Guess I should clean up my own act before looking elsewhere... How about this to clean things up? [3]


Glass houses, right? Still, looking at other writer's work with an eye to improve on them (or know what you don't like) isn't nothing. And sometimes, in this overtly "always be promoting" lit world (and any negatives come with Stans or what have you coming at you)

Anyhow, reading Wretched of the Earth and that's much better and more nuanced than the derivative takes of it by polemics in our zeitgeist. But I guess that's why they have cash and a readership. Gotta drive those clicks. Check it out your self. From a library or the link above. 
[1] Here's a feel good one: Short stories work best when they limit their scope to 1 or 2 focused ideas. For such a short story, A Cabin Tale manages to contain about twice this many themes and, impressively enough, it still works. I was fully invested throughout. I look forward to hearing more short stories from this author in the future. 
[2] I love the narration a lot. The story is good too. Really like the point of view of the devil.
[3]Well done all around

This is a good story that really plays to the human condition. Greed, lust, selfishness... Matt exhibits it all but will he be able to handle it or keep it covered up?

A lot of things going on in this relatively quick listen. A cheater, a hero... All sum up Matt but at the end of the day will he be able to continue to juggle the life he has created?

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CRT and the Right's New Scream

Sometimes my writing has slowed down in recent times because the craziness of the people in my own nation, or my own world, seems to very easily surpass that which I can write about. Labyrinth of Souls had that feeling. As I was writing it, then editing it, then publishing it, I could feel reality drowning it in craziness that couldn't be matched. 
Well, not entirely. I think a few of my shorts approximate it all. Maybe I do have to return tot he novel to get a better grasp of it all. 
Soooo..... what's going on out there?
Everyone from Sully Dish to whatever grifter is trying to cash in on the crazy right (and center, especially with CRT and reactions to BLM). Funny enough, many who are screaming, all frothy mouths and going hard with the dumb, are also "free speesh" grifters who will never mention how the right is much more powerful and better at suppressing free speech. 
Of course for them, free speech is merely about trying suppress the other person's speech and so that they've swung so easily to CRT and approval of laws that are actually state led efforts to suppress free speech. Not at all shocking if you've paid attention here or know what the right's good at doing. I'm sure the free speech absolutists will be here any time now to mention how bad these laws are. Kidding. 
So here's a touch of sense from a general and Green Beret.  

Yes, read all you can, ffs. But the right, of course, wants to stop that. And they are actually doing it, rather than it being some fringe part of CRT (that is a legit idea of thinking things through, though, again, beware liberals who use the right words but are wrong headed, as in this take).

Take, for example, the above. The right (and many in the center) love blaming wokeness (read: the second civil rights movement) for everything wrong in the world. Heres more against their narrative, but trust and believe this will never change their constant scream narrative. Be safe out there with this lot. Some of them sound like Lacoste from the Algerian War. 
Anyhow, on the good news side of things, we should really head off the water wars. 


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Lit Feud.

Apparently there's a lit feud that's between Nigerian writers. Adichie  (with Half a Yellow Sun , much liked by this blog) vs a trans writer Emezi (who wrote Freshwater , which I mentioned before in 2019 as good enough that I want to see more from the author). I suppose I should read the essay, but I'm of the mind that I do have to read it. That said, the reactions online are something else. On both sides. I speak of the minion on twitter and the like. Your thoughts. 
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How's the Reading Going?

Like I said, some of you are picking some really great books I've never read, so please share whenever you get the chance. Any how, here's a good breakdown of fairytales and some real tales. 

Fortunately for medieval haircare budgets, Rapunzel and her sisters in the folk tale type "Maiden in the Tower" are primarily that--folk tales. But there are some interesting specific things to look at anyway. Or at least, interesting if you like killing abusive fathers with lightning.

First: while lonesome towers imprisoning beautiful virgins might not have been scattered across later medieval Europe, one story about one tower sure was. St. Barbara was one of the most popular saints in western Christianity. She was never a real person (or at least, there's no historical evidence for her). But her legend made her one of the select group of saints known as the virgin martyrs. These saints--most of whom were apocryphal like Barbara--were Christian teenagers (always female) or young women in the days of the early Church and pagan-Roman persecution, who refused sex and/or marriage for religious reasons, stood up for their faith, and were violently killed.

The thing about medieval virgin martyr legends, especially the apocryphal saints, is that they're awesome. Katherine of Alexandria defeats fifty pagan philosophers in a head-to-head debate. Margaret of Antioch gets eaten by a dragon, then kills it by splitting open its stomach from the inside and bursting out. And Barbara is our maiden in the tower.

As Barbara's hagiography has it, her father Dioscorus built a tower and confined his beautiful daughter there to keep men from seeing her before marriage. But whereas we might see a prison, the situation didn't seem to bother Barbara all that much--she was far more upset when her father tried to present her with suitors to choose from, since she'd chosen her Prince Charming already and he was Christ.

One interesting thing about Barbara's hagiography as opposed to other virgin martyrs is that her father doesn't seem to have a problem with her turning down marriage. His reaction is to...build another building (in some versions, for her use specifically) and go out of town for awhile. When Dioscorus does return, though, he finds out that Barbara had the builders alter his plans for the non-tower building. She insisted that it have three windows instead of two, to reflect the Christian idea of God as a Trinity. He was so angry about her Christian devotion that he nearly killed her on the spot, but virgin martyrs don't get off that easy she was miraculously transported out of the building and onto a mountainside.

...But virgin martyrs also don't get off without being, you know, martyrs, so one of the shepherds betrays her back to her dad, for his trouble God turns him to stone and his sheep to locusts.

Then Barbara ends up in real prison, and then violently dead. And afterwards, God smites her father with lightning--and then smites the ashes left behind so that not a trace remains.

But while virgin martyr hagiographies have a strong tinge of romance to them (amidst the gory torture and death, of course), actual tower or castle captivity for medieval women would not be told as a tale of tragic quasi-adventure. Lords forced female family members into service as hostages in treaty negotiations or other agreements. Sometimes this came in the guise of marriage or betrothal, or "planned" versions thereof, but sometimes it came down to handing over a prisoner. And the resulting picture of the woman's life also varied greatly.

Consider Constance (d.1201) and Eleanor of Brittany (1184-1241), mother and daughter. Constance was the daughter of Conrad II of Brittany, who made the grievous mistake of owning land that English king Henry II wanted closer control over. Conrad was "persuaded" to send his daughter Constance to Henry's court as a future wife for Henry's son Geoffrey--when Constance was four. This wasn't a case of two families making a betrothal or arrangement for the future; Constance was sent to the other court. 

However, Constance did seem to have a relatively normal life for a twelfth-century English princess. Annette Parks remarks that we have no evidence of whether or not Constance helped in running the duchy--just significant absences by her husband, in which medieval noblewomen often stepped up...and, oh yeah, a long-burning conflict between Geoffrey and his father.

It was Eleanor who was in trouble.

First, there was the failed attempt to make her a hostage. (No, really). When the Holy Roman Emperor imprisoned the King of England after the Third Crusade, Heinrich did so intending to extract a significant ransom for Richard. Part of that ransom was hostages sent from England to Germany to act as, essentially, a guarantee that England would pay everything off eventually. Eleanor was to be one of those hostages, in the guise of marriage to Leopold of Austria's heir. But Leopold had the gall to die when Eleanor was only halfway across Europe, so she was sent back to England.

And say goodbye to Richard the Lionheart and hello to King John. It didn't take John much to see that as the granddaughter of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Eleanor of Brittany had a strong claim for her descendants (if not in herself) to a whole lot of territory--including a future claim to the throne of England, a.k.a. John's throne). It also seems that it didn't take John very much to defeat a rebellion by Eleanor's older brother--and one of the results was John's physical custody of Eleanor.

And so just like the apocryphal Barbara's apocryphal father built a tower to keep her away from men and marriage outside of his control, John thrust Eleanor into a castle away from men and marriage. As Parks writes:

Once John had captured Eleanor, he and his heirs had little choice but to keep her. Even when she had passed her child-bearing years and was no longer a threat to produce claim-holding heirs...mere possession of her person brought with it implicit and explicit claims to land, position, and power that required careful management.

One wonders what Eleanor thought of thirty-nine years of "careful management": allowed servants and the space to go horseback riding, but never again leaving the castle where she was shut up--and with no Prince Charming coming to save her. Deity or otherwise.

And then, let's go to the place where history and hagiography meet back on the other side: the granddaughters of English king Henry I this time, and why we shouldn't brush off stories of hostages as guests with restrictions. Henry was trying to pacify relations between two of his nobles involved in what super-comprehensive 12th century chronicler Orderic Vitalis noted as one of the few blood-feuds (Latin talio) in his knowledge. He had Ralph Harenc send his son to Eustache of Breteuil (Henry's son-in-law, by the way), and in return Eustache sent to Ralph his daughters.

Eustache, unfortunately, was interested primarily in using the situation to lash out at Ralph. He had Ralph's son's eyes gouged out...and sent to the boy's father as a "gift." In return? Ralph asked Henry for permission to blind and cut off the noses of his own hostages, Eustache's daughters...Henry's own granddaughters. Henry granted it.

~~

If you'd like to read more about virgin martyrs (specifically the hungry dragon part) OR saving princesses, you can pre-order my book How to Slay a Dragon: A Fantasy Hero's Guide to the Real Middle Ages. Learn how to survive your next dungeon crawl or self-insert fantasy fic with evidence from actual medieval history...and a handful of really terrible pickup lines

but as reddit giveth, so reddit taketh, and though I managed to kinda miss the latest right wing scream machine (crime wave that's blaming BLM, CRT, a straight reactionary backlash against anything good, never mind aiming for more Jim Crow era laws) but then there's everyday stuff:

I was running some errands yesterday, and on my drive I had to slow down to a stop for a mama duck crossing the street with about 10 ducklings in tow. It's mid afternoon, on a wide straight road, where the speed limit is only about 45mph. So I had plenty of time to see them and slow to a stop. No brake slamming or anything like that. I see a car coming up from behind me about 5-8 seconds back that isn't slowing down at all. By this point mama duck is across the street and the ducklings hot on her heels. The car moves onto the shoulder to pass me instead of also stopping, and in doing so kills most of the ducklings. I tried to believe that they didn't see the ducks and just saw a car stopped with no purpose on the road so they passed and it was an accident. But no the sick fuck didn't even slow down afterwords. The worst part is I pulled up the very same car at the next red light. So it's not like their little massacre even saved them any time on their drive which had to be their intention right? Mama duck was still just standing at the side of the road with her remaining ducklings when I drove by again on my way home. The whole event just put me into such a depressive mind state on how people can just kill other beings for no purpose at all. Gonna be a long time before that's out of my head. 

I just need to put that out in the air and didn't want to ruin my partners day by telling her. So thanks for the post space.

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Game of Fog of War

Been enjoying a couple fog a war chess games against higher ranked players. This one was a slog through the end, but I managed a win. There are certain styles I do better at. Some of the all out guns blazing players are harder to deal with, IMO (even if they're lower ranked). 
Here, I played a kind of defensive set up that ended up working pretty well. 
By the time the end game comes along, I was pretty solid. Enough to go for the queen sacrifice. 
And with the two pawns sitting up there, I needed a little bit of luck, of course. But I knew where their king was so that was helpful. 

And I knew where their queen was, so that was helpful. 
So though they take one of the pawns, I still had the rook check.  A kill off ensues. And we're left with something like an endgame, where I was aware of all their pawns. 


Ultimately, that rook at the end was too powerful. So go play here and see what you think. 
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