'eclair', for example, is defined as a 'a cake, long in shape but short in duration'.

And then there's the infamous 'taghairm' - which may not be humour at all, but something much darker and Scottish. You can bet that MacBeth did his share of Taghairm, or paid somebody to. Even in a play so steeped in gore it was too horrible for Shakespeare to mention:

<taghairm: divination in the Scottish highlands; inspiration sought by lying in a bullock's hide behind a waterfall.>

<odd houris> - I'll have to think about whether I should be protesting that. The second part, that is. And not due to the etymological mixup. :p

<The downside is, I occasionally lose - or mislay - a day.>

Uh, try not to do that? It sounds untidy. ;s

<I was, however, reading at the age of two - and I read a sci-fi novel for grownups at four, which indicates some sort of prodigyhood.>

It sure does. :) I didn't get around to SF until much later - although I did develop a very annoying habit of quizzing the hapless adults around me about minor characters of the Greek Mythology by age 6 or so.

The Chinese epic (Journey to the West) was my obsession around age 10. And then, just because I asked my mother if we had any other Chinese books, I ended up following it up with 'Jin Ping Mei', which is ... errr... a novel most parents wouldn't really want their 20-year-old daughters to read, let alone half that age. Heh.

The interesting thing about all these books (including the Greek Mythology) though, is that none - or almost none - of their characters (main or minor) are what could be considered positive role models. Quite a difference from modern Western literature, which tends to feature a "hero", or at least a likeable/respectable protagonist.

Which led me to wondering (much later) about just how, why, and when one becomes more judgemental. The answer to that one is still not in, except for my observation that children seem to be completely unjudgmental until they pick up a "good/bad" cue from the adults around them on any given subject, and then that's The Way It Is. Just a survival mechanism of the Primate order, I suppose.

But then it will be another 10-30 years at least until they are mature enough to rethink, reevaluate and re- or un-judge on their own. Provided they even want to try. (Which ties in with your comment on that subject...)

"- No, I don't think that's a saber-tooth cat, actually. Looks more like a giant sloth, what's it gonna do, *fall* on me? No need to run, guys, I'm sure a brisk walk will suffice. Aaaargh."

[in a rare case of prehistoric famous-last-wordery, our Optimist gets a final speech. Groans, yells, etc are downplayed, as is traditional in the genre ...]

"OK, so I was wrong. But you know what, Mr Sabertooth Guy? Our little lunch a deux won't affect the human gene pool much. I've already bred. Prodigiously, in fact. The girls love an optimist ....." [expires]

As for <pragmatic optimism>, if this was a normal human trait, where did all those religions come from? Why all those belief-systems with a basic tenet claiming that the sky god will be mightily vexed unless you abstain from certain foods and practice genocide on the next village? The widespread belief in genital mutilation as a form of cosmic appeasement? The notion that the sun might decide not to rise unless fed with a steady diet of sacrificial victims? The idea that God gave us volcanoes for throwing people into, for Lo! were we not created as the almighty's personal tobacco? Or maybe hashish, if you think a god would have to be stoned to behave like that. Maybe He's *addicted* to us now, needs the human fix on an ever-increasing scale, no genocide is ever quite enough anymore ...

What've we got? Pessimism - about the sun rising, life going on as before, etc - was perhaps a default option for millennia, hence the savage irrationalism of religions. Since the scientific revolution begain to explain how things actually worked, a cautious optimism has begun to emerge in certain quarters.

It is still held back by - among other things - the idea that science is just another belief system; the belief that science causes bad stuff like nuclear weapons; the reversion to fundamentalist religion in some cultures (1000 years ago, the best mathematical and scientific schools were in Baghdad, with the Abbasid's House of Wisdom ... now it's Qoranic madrassahs in all directions); a sense among Western 'intellectuals' that the rationalist ideas of the 18th century Enlightenment have been tried and failed (and how certain academics continue to revere the names of Marx and Freud long after their actual theories have been discredited); etc.

Daaarn, I've done it yet again ... taken a relatively minor aspect of the post I'm replying to, extracted its molehills, and piled 'em high into a very dodgy mountain which has nothing to do with anything much. Oh well.

The sci-fi book I read when I was four was Orbit Unlimited by Poul Anderson. It featured colonists to a distant planet being 'born in tanks' on board ship. When they arrived, the 'naturally-born' mock the test-tuboids with chants like "Nyah! Born in a tank like a tiny little piggy!" ... which sounds very plausible to me now, but I'm just about old enough to understand it. Back then, I was completely thrown, bewildered, puzzled: my knowledge of interstellar flight (which didn't exist) was running ahead of my knowledge of human reproduction (which apparently did).

You can learn a lot from both classics and science fiction, without incurring the suspicion of parents or censors. Until the 1960s, vast amounts of 'literary fiction' were banned in Ireland (one, I was told, for using the subversive and sexually unambiguous word 'breasts', where the singular form would have been kosher).

Yet some life-enhancing ideas got thru in the form of classics and sci-fi. I never quite reached Chinese literature, but I had volumes of Poe, Shakespeare, Shelley (and oddballs like Sir Henry Rider Haggard).

I was eventually forced to the conclusion that a little censorship is a good thing because it forces you -- reader or writer -- to come up with a workaround. Just as the discipline of a haiku or sonnet is useful. Then I thought of the *samizdat* writing coming out of cold war Eastern Europe, and the saying that "oppression stimulates metaphor".

So, what have you got against those poor kids? ;s

I was just reminded of Heinlein's 'All You Zombies' here for a minute - one of his two time travel paradox short stories AFAIK, and the other one, 'By His Bootstraps', is by far the better of the two actually - except in this one the protagonist keeps going back in time and making his own earlier life miserable at every turn. :p

I've read some books by Poul Anderson. He's one of those writers I consider "variable quality". His 'Brain Wave' novel was excellent, and he has some really good short stories - but quite a few of his other novels failed to make much impression. I don't recall the title you mentioned, though I've read many of these multi-generation spaceflight stories, by various authors.

The most notable other members of the Variable Quality Club are (IMO) A.E. VanVogt and Clifford Simak - both have a number of truly first class novels, but also a lot of what comes across as "well, a writer's gotta make a living, inspiration or no inspiration" kinda publications. :\

But I, too, have been rambling here. Heh. Actually, what's really amusingly well-timed about your comment re. your tendency to latch on to the details (possibly to the detriment of the larger picture?) ;) is how relevant it is, regarding the point in discussion about how religious tendencies fit in with optimism. Because IMO, you just got lost in the details - trivia, really ;p - there too.

Because, actually, I think that the early tendency to invoke religion is the first and foremost, and most classic manifestation of human optimism! Namely, the wish to turn the world into a place where the great and mysterious powers of nature <can> somehow be controlled, or at least influenced, if only you just try your darnedest to do "the right thing", and not just endured in total helplessness.

Like a child, making up rules to go with his terrors; the monster in the closet won't get you if you don't open the closet door after dark, and the monster under the bed won't come out if you leave the night light on.

The terrors of early humans were not imaginary (loved your impromptu production there btw!), :D but it was exactly <optimism>, the need to believe that things can be improved to something better, something tolerable, that made our early ancestors make up those Good Spirits that can stop the next flash flood from washing over their camp in the night, turn away the next raging prairie fire, make that horrible sabertooth tiger that has been hanging around follow the next passing herd of antelopes downriver, never to return again... if only they can come up with the "right" chants, rituals, sacrifices, whatever they may be - the important thing is to believe that they can attain some kind of <control>, some kind of defense, from the terrifying powers they were otherwise completely helpless against. That made the difference between despair and hope to our early forebears, the difference between lying face down in the ashes wailing until some predator put them out of their misery after the last lava eruption their home suffered, and getting up and trying to come up with some strategy to survive next time. The next lava eruption may have been another 2000 years off anyway; but if they had not had <some> drive to believe they could do better next time (which <they> didn't know the schedule for), our ancestors probably wouldn't have survived.

BTW, one of the best summaries I have ever seen of the mindset behind early religion, in a nutshell, can be found in Tom Sawyer:

http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/wo...

<<Mark Twain - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer:>

So they stood, each with a foot placed at an angle as a brace, and both shoving with might and main, and glowering at each other with hate. But neither could get an advantage. After struggling till both were hot and flushed, each relaxed his strain with watchful caution, and Tom said:

"You're a coward and a pup. I'll tell my big brother on you, and he can thrash you with his little finger, and I'll make him do it, too."

"What do I care for your big brother? I've got a brother that's bigger than he is--and what's more, he can throw him over that fence, too."

Re the question <does Constant Inn Opal get another turn too???> there's a scene featuring a TV movie (Cashiered!) about a boy and his dog and his Dad, fighting Nazis with their mini-submarine. Boy hero sings:

"Soon our sub's periscope'll
Head for Constantinople
Just my Daddy, my Doggy and me ..."

Love that rhyme. Sailing to Byzantium, in a sense.

The other quote is courtesy of an insane shrink, Dr Hilarius, who may have a disturbing Nazi past of his own. On the subject of fantasies, he says: "Cherish your fantasies -- hold them tightly by their little tentacles ..."

It's brilliantly funny, and tackles every paradox in the genre. It also features a pair of identical twins, as well as the duplicates created every time somebody pops a few minutes into the past. Then there are the Nazis trying to bring Hitler an atom bomb ... but first they have to eliminate alternate versions of themselves.

The title comes from the hero's eventual attempt to explain all to the police: "Well, about this time tomorrow I'll be scalding myself with tea, when ..."

I saw it on BBC in 1982. Subtitled sci-fi on a Saturday night? You wouldn't get that now. Even weirder, Capricorn One was on ITV, so two out of three channels were broadcasting sf movies.

The third choice was 'Match of the Day'. Something to do with chess?

There's a nice word -- one of my all-time favorites -- for this phenomenon: <apotropaic>. It means something like 'serving to turn aside evil'.

I first saw it in the heading on a sci-fi book review in New Worlds magazine, which read "Apotropaic Narcosis, I'm Going to Read the damned thing, Ha ha".

No, but it sounds cute.

<Maybe, just like people, apotropaic behaviour can be either optimistic or pessimistic [...]>

I still don't think so, :) because the word <apotropaic> (btw, as also indicated by the excellent Jo Rowling, any expression ought to have magic powers if it's based on Latin) :p still, and <by definition>, postulates two assumptions, namely that <1 - evil exists> and <2 - it is <possible> to turn it aside>. Now, this is all still optimistic even if both assumptions are false (no monster in the closet), but even more optimistic if the "evil" to be averted actually exists.

The very idea, that "gut feeling" that any evil/trouble/danger/catastrophe etc. <ought to> have some preventive/countermeasure/antidote etc., is deeply and unobjectively optimistic.

In chess terms, for those of us who tend that way, ;) it's like looking at any random position and assuming it's a "puzzle of the day" - that is, assuming that there is <something> you can do to avert the threats and win.

We humans just don't deal very well with the idea that there is <no rational basis> for assuming there is, or even "should be", actually something to do in any situation.

<<<<<<>>>>>>

How very Adorno.

<On a completely different (yet still optimistic) :p subject, I am going to be in London between 25-31 of this month (that's in another two days or so) and would like to meet you if you can manage to drop by London sometime in this period. :)>

I'm in London now, and so far so good. ;)

en passant = dul thart. >

Suimiúil, ni raibh a fhios agam go raibh an Ghaeilge agat... An Gael thú i ndáiríre?

<Annie> & <mack>: if the plan works, say hi to one another for me.

Apotropaic. Heh. I'm so used to not giving a moment's thought to the personified judaeo-xtian version of Evil - like the bad guy in Time Bandits - that I tend to use 'evil' as a synonym for 'nuisance'. And nuisance exists. Maybe it can't be permanently turned aside - entropy, or something, is to blame - but one can swerve around it.

éighníomhach

<mack> Cool! :) Refer to my player page regarding how to recognize me, and be sure to come by and introduce yourself!

(just testing to see if there's an "auto ban" on that word- or perhaps just an autobahn)

Did you notice that <Willem Dafoe> is now 80 years old, but looks 38?

I don't know how he does it.

Also, he's taken to accepting low paying roles in "high end" art-horror films.

And yes, that *is* a real genre.

I enjoyed him mightily in the confusing, but also beautiful and terrifying <Anamorph>, and I enjoyed him even more in the latest <Lars Von Trier> triumph <Antichrist>.

I found it stunning- I'm still attempting to figure out all of the many verbal and visual allusions to help me understand the theme.

On first viewing, I thought the point was that "Women are evil and shouldn't be killed, but it was evil to kill them all in the Middle Ages, but they are still evil, and by killing an evil woman today, all of the "witches" who were killed in the Middle Ages will come back to life".

But I think that's not right, actually.

I'm going to watch it again soon for more ideas.

Any ideas? Have you seen <Antichrist>?

It's not really about the Antichrist..

OR IS IT?????

heh

Anyhoo it's on my hardrive now so they can't take it away from me.

Ok then.

He and the movie portrayed Jesus so pathetically that we don't need him to play "anti-christ"...

There was no "anti-christ" character.

<Lars Von Trier> is a master of cinema as art- as is <Martin Scorcese>.

I'd suggest learning more-- a great deal more-- about film, art, culture, history, religion, science, and - well any subject at all really- before shooting your mouth off so freely, and so often about things you have absolutely no understanding of.

Understanding takes work- effort= and critical thinking. Independent thinking.

I don't want to "tattle," but some people are gossiping about you over at page 159 of <hms123> forum.

I think some of them are even taking your name in vain.

Oh wait that was me actually....