How do you dress a god, in the modern day, while keeping the richness of his or her heritage intact, and without making them look completely ludicrous?
Does a god wear jeans and t-shirts? Or, does a god stick to what he knows, and continue wearing the clothing of his glory days long past their expiration date? How do you dress a god in such a way that a reader (or viewer) will recognize them as more than mortal, or not quite human, but it won't tip off the rest of the characters?
Friday, October 09, 2009
Thursday, October 08, 2009
The Nordic Bronze Age
One of the most critical plot points in my book occurs right smack in the middle of the Nordic Bronze Age. That was the period between, oh, 1600 BCE and 600 BCE, roughly--those dates are subject to change depending on what text book you're reading. Okay, so maybe not the middle. It's about 980 or so. Anyway, the result of all this is that I've had to do a lot of investigation and research.
Unlike other periods in history, we really don't know a lot about the Bronze Age in Scandinavia. We know that the weather was much warmer--think modern day Northern France, they were even growing grapes-- and they participated in trade with the rest of Europe. There's even evidence/supposition of contact between Scandinavia and Crete. But most of our information comes from burial sites and stone paintings. There was no written language, and most of what we know of Scandinavian culture came from the Eddas which weren't recorded until much, much later. (~1000 AD--I mean, CE. That's the politically correct term now, right?)
Basically the scarcity of information leaves me with a number of challenges.
1) As far as clothing and dress go, we basically only know what people were buried in. And we don't even really know who the buried people ARE. Nobility? Priests and Priestesses? Personally, I find myself wondering if the people being buried were done so in their Sunday's finest, not unlike we do now. If that's the case, then it tells us practically nothing at all about the day to day regular Joes. Or maybe I should call them Svens? If my leading lady is the daughter of a village leader, is that noble enough to merit burial? Noble enough to mean that she had finely woven hair nets and belts? Did she have jewelry? Or was she still wearing furs? The nobles had woven wool clothing, for sure. Did the non-nobles? I don't even want to call them peasants, and nobles, to be honest, because we're not even clear on the social stratification.
2) Day to day life is even more of a mystery. They had agriculture for sure. Like I said above, they were growing grapes and making wine. But how much impact did the amber trade have on economics for villages? How dependent were these people on coastal fishing? We know that later on, Vikings are notorious seafarers. But what were they then? If they had contact with the south, and even Crete, is it reasonable to assume that they had some knowledge of boat building greater than hallowed out logs for canoes? Egypt certainly had no trouble building immense barges around the same time. Certainly the people of archaic Greece weren't slackers when it came to boat building, either. The technology existed. But even with trade, did it make it that far north? Were villages conquering one another? Fighting? Was Tribalism an issue? How was leadership decided?
3) What about the gods we all know and love? Or at least the gods that I know and love, I don't know how you feel about them. There's evidence from the pictures that the symbols later used by Odin, Thor, and Freyr, as well as Freyja were present. But the first written acknowledgment of the Norse Gods we know from the Eddas wasn't until Tacitus, who wrote around 100 AD/CE. While it's completely possible, and even likely, that the gods of the Vikings had their roots in the Bronze age, we don't have a lot of evidence one way or another to support it. Could I make the assumption? Sure. Would I prefer to have some actual research and information to back it up? Definitely.
Now, the good thing about the lack of information, is that I can make some informed guesses and make stuff up to my heart's content. But while I know my classical history better than most people, I'm a little weak with this Bronze Age business.
It's a good thing I have a lot of books.
Unlike other periods in history, we really don't know a lot about the Bronze Age in Scandinavia. We know that the weather was much warmer--think modern day Northern France, they were even growing grapes-- and they participated in trade with the rest of Europe. There's even evidence/supposition of contact between Scandinavia and Crete. But most of our information comes from burial sites and stone paintings. There was no written language, and most of what we know of Scandinavian culture came from the Eddas which weren't recorded until much, much later. (~1000 AD--I mean, CE. That's the politically correct term now, right?)
Basically the scarcity of information leaves me with a number of challenges.
1) As far as clothing and dress go, we basically only know what people were buried in. And we don't even really know who the buried people ARE. Nobility? Priests and Priestesses? Personally, I find myself wondering if the people being buried were done so in their Sunday's finest, not unlike we do now. If that's the case, then it tells us practically nothing at all about the day to day regular Joes. Or maybe I should call them Svens? If my leading lady is the daughter of a village leader, is that noble enough to merit burial? Noble enough to mean that she had finely woven hair nets and belts? Did she have jewelry? Or was she still wearing furs? The nobles had woven wool clothing, for sure. Did the non-nobles? I don't even want to call them peasants, and nobles, to be honest, because we're not even clear on the social stratification.
2) Day to day life is even more of a mystery. They had agriculture for sure. Like I said above, they were growing grapes and making wine. But how much impact did the amber trade have on economics for villages? How dependent were these people on coastal fishing? We know that later on, Vikings are notorious seafarers. But what were they then? If they had contact with the south, and even Crete, is it reasonable to assume that they had some knowledge of boat building greater than hallowed out logs for canoes? Egypt certainly had no trouble building immense barges around the same time. Certainly the people of archaic Greece weren't slackers when it came to boat building, either. The technology existed. But even with trade, did it make it that far north? Were villages conquering one another? Fighting? Was Tribalism an issue? How was leadership decided?
3) What about the gods we all know and love? Or at least the gods that I know and love, I don't know how you feel about them. There's evidence from the pictures that the symbols later used by Odin, Thor, and Freyr, as well as Freyja were present. But the first written acknowledgment of the Norse Gods we know from the Eddas wasn't until Tacitus, who wrote around 100 AD/CE. While it's completely possible, and even likely, that the gods of the Vikings had their roots in the Bronze age, we don't have a lot of evidence one way or another to support it. Could I make the assumption? Sure. Would I prefer to have some actual research and information to back it up? Definitely.
Now, the good thing about the lack of information, is that I can make some informed guesses and make stuff up to my heart's content. But while I know my classical history better than most people, I'm a little weak with this Bronze Age business.
It's a good thing I have a lot of books.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Answering Life's Childhood Questions Through Writing
J.R.R. Tolkien had a vision for his work which went beyond simply telling a good story set within a vivid world, similar but unlike our own. He wanted more than anything to create a national mythology for his country. He wanted Britain to have gods and heroes greater than mere mortals, but still relatable and flawed. (Really. I took a class on Tolkien. I'm not making this stuff up!) To that end, he drew on the culture of his own country and the myths and legends of other nations that he found admirable to create a unique world. It goes without saying that this was the birth of The Lord of the Rings.
As a child I always wondered what to make of the many pantheons, the many myths, the many creations of the world. I always struggled to somehow fit them all together into one universe, one faith. I remember once asking my mother if the other gods, Zeus, Thor, Amun-Ra, Shiva, were the extended family of God. His cousins and aunts and uncles, his brothers and sisters, his nieces and nephews. Could they all be related? Family? Friends?
Though my mother was quick to dissuade me, the idea never left my mind completely. Despite my Christian upbringing, I still wanted to find a way to make it all fit together. Not unlike Mr. Tolkien, I wanted to create a new mythology. This was God’s world, but I wanted to find a way to let the other gods live in it. I wanted to blend the existing myths and legends, gods and heroes, into one big family.
My journey to this end began with The Book of Genesis, and Adam and Eve. It was fueled by classes in Norse Mythology and Classical History.
I'll tell you this--but the rest you'll have to read in the book that I ended up writing-- the other gods are NOT God's extended and dysfunctional family. But it was a fun idea when I was a kid. I like the answer I discovered through writing my book better though, anyway, now that I'm an adult.
As a child I always wondered what to make of the many pantheons, the many myths, the many creations of the world. I always struggled to somehow fit them all together into one universe, one faith. I remember once asking my mother if the other gods, Zeus, Thor, Amun-Ra, Shiva, were the extended family of God. His cousins and aunts and uncles, his brothers and sisters, his nieces and nephews. Could they all be related? Family? Friends?
Though my mother was quick to dissuade me, the idea never left my mind completely. Despite my Christian upbringing, I still wanted to find a way to make it all fit together. Not unlike Mr. Tolkien, I wanted to create a new mythology. This was God’s world, but I wanted to find a way to let the other gods live in it. I wanted to blend the existing myths and legends, gods and heroes, into one big family.
My journey to this end began with The Book of Genesis, and Adam and Eve. It was fueled by classes in Norse Mythology and Classical History.
I'll tell you this--but the rest you'll have to read in the book that I ended up writing-- the other gods are NOT God's extended and dysfunctional family. But it was a fun idea when I was a kid. I like the answer I discovered through writing my book better though, anyway, now that I'm an adult.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
More Language Fun
I was always jealous of schools that offered foreign languages to younger students. In my school, growing up, foreign language classes didn't begin until seventh grade. But I was well aware of the fact that supposedly, the younger you are, the easier it is to learn a new language. I always wondered why we weren't starting these classes in elementary school. Just because you're too young to make a choice between them? I don't know.
But anyway, apparently Use it or Lose it is NOT a correct statement to make about languages. And apparently, also, once a second language is learned and practiced (laid down a new map over our brain when you become bilingual), we don't shut it off.
I have always wanted to learn to master a new language. I've been fascinated by it for an excessively long time. Long enough to learn one-- but I never did. I took Spanish from seventh to tenth grade, but then I dropped it in favor of study halls (I know, shame on me!) and when I got to college and actually wanted to learn again, I chose Latin for the reasons already mentioned in this post. Though they were both romance languages, it fractured my language education.
But anyway, apparently Use it or Lose it is NOT a correct statement to make about languages. And apparently, also, once a second language is learned and practiced (laid down a new map over our brain when you become bilingual), we don't shut it off.
I have always wanted to learn to master a new language. I've been fascinated by it for an excessively long time. Long enough to learn one-- but I never did. I took Spanish from seventh to tenth grade, but then I dropped it in favor of study halls (I know, shame on me!) and when I got to college and actually wanted to learn again, I chose Latin for the reasons already mentioned in this post. Though they were both romance languages, it fractured my language education.
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Random Language Learning!
Keeping in the spirit of my previous post on furthering education, I was researching programs and came across a completely free course of study in Icelandic through the University of Wisconsin and put together by the University of Iceland!
I've signed up with A couple of my friends, including SQRT(D) (because learning a language is always better with a buddy!) and I encourage any of you with interest to join us! If you have a background in German, you should be pretty well off--my husband was able to read over my shoulder half the stuff in the first lesson with his rusty 4 year old German skills. I do not have a background in German--though my computer thought otherwise for a period of several irritating months--and this is going to be an incredible challenge of Awesome! That means, that no matter how bad you are, I will probably be worse at it! So feel good about yourself and take a shot!
Icelandic can be compared with Latin, as far as the complexity and preservation of cases and forms goes. Not that the vocabulary is at all similar, but grammatically, it's the same level of crazy.
I say, why not?
I've signed up with A couple of my friends, including SQRT(D) (because learning a language is always better with a buddy!) and I encourage any of you with interest to join us! If you have a background in German, you should be pretty well off--my husband was able to read over my shoulder half the stuff in the first lesson with his rusty 4 year old German skills. I do not have a background in German--though my computer thought otherwise for a period of several irritating months--and this is going to be an incredible challenge of Awesome! That means, that no matter how bad you are, I will probably be worse at it! So feel good about yourself and take a shot!
Icelandic can be compared with Latin, as far as the complexity and preservation of cases and forms goes. Not that the vocabulary is at all similar, but grammatically, it's the same level of crazy.
I say, why not?
Saturday, October 03, 2009
Back to Brains!
I've been saying for years that for women, styling each other's hair and makeup is the human interpretation of social grooming in monkeys. Ever since I went to college and shared a bathroom with a whole hall of girls, where I observed again and again and again that the bathroom even more so than the lounge was where congregation on conversation happened. Women are social groomers. We bond over hair and makeup. Even those of us who eschew makeup and curling irons have been known to submit to this grooming in the interest of socialization.
So now we're back to brains again-- Monkeys' grooming habits provide clues to how we socialize.
Kind of obvious, right? Here's the twist. The larger the neocortex, the smaller circle in which they concentrate their social grooming. The larger the neocortex, the larger the groups in which these monkeys congregate, too. So, larger groups but smaller groups of friends. But it's okay, because the larger neocortex evidently allows for monkeys, and us, to balance more distant relationships. Essentially, they can be pleasant to everyone without being best friends forever with the entire group. The larger neocortex allows that complexity.
According to this article, our neocortexes (neocortegi?) are three times the size of these other monkeys. And that accounts for our ability to socialize on such tremendous scales. We're balancing relationships with hundreds of people at a time, as opposed to the 50 of even the more sophisticated monkeys. We have our close friends, who we concentrate our time and effort on, and two hundred other people we still associate with when we're put in the right situation. Go take a look at the number of friends you have on facebook or myspace. How many of them do you actually talk to on the phone? or spend time with once a week? How many of them do you just check status updates on, and call it good?
Thank your neocortex!
And remember, it isn't total brain size that counts-- it's the size of the PARTS of the brain that matters!
So what do you think this means about Hyenas and their greater ability to cooperate? What part of the brain is it that is more effectively developed? And what do their neocortexes look like?
So now we're back to brains again-- Monkeys' grooming habits provide clues to how we socialize.
Kind of obvious, right? Here's the twist. The larger the neocortex, the smaller circle in which they concentrate their social grooming. The larger the neocortex, the larger the groups in which these monkeys congregate, too. So, larger groups but smaller groups of friends. But it's okay, because the larger neocortex evidently allows for monkeys, and us, to balance more distant relationships. Essentially, they can be pleasant to everyone without being best friends forever with the entire group. The larger neocortex allows that complexity.
According to this article, our neocortexes (neocortegi?) are three times the size of these other monkeys. And that accounts for our ability to socialize on such tremendous scales. We're balancing relationships with hundreds of people at a time, as opposed to the 50 of even the more sophisticated monkeys. We have our close friends, who we concentrate our time and effort on, and two hundred other people we still associate with when we're put in the right situation. Go take a look at the number of friends you have on facebook or myspace. How many of them do you actually talk to on the phone? or spend time with once a week? How many of them do you just check status updates on, and call it good?
Thank your neocortex!
And remember, it isn't total brain size that counts-- it's the size of the PARTS of the brain that matters!
So what do you think this means about Hyenas and their greater ability to cooperate? What part of the brain is it that is more effectively developed? And what do their neocortexes look like?
Friday, October 02, 2009
Reflections on Further Education
You know what I love about writing? Every project is a new opportunity to learn.
Not just to learn how to write better, and improve my own skill level, but also, to research something new. Writing is a career path which allows one the luxury of never having to settle down into one particular field. Sure, in college I took English classes. Creative writing classes out the wazoo. But it wasn't the only thing I did. I didn't go to college with the goal of getting a BA in English. I hadn't intended on a liberal arts degree at all. I went to college for Wildlife Biology. My ultimate goal was to be a zookeeper, and write on the side, and while I was going to minor in English and suck up all the creative writing classes I could, it wasn't my academic priority.
Of course, Wildlife Biology wasn't really my calling, and I realized that the number and intensity of science classes it required was going to make me hate myself and my life and my education, so instead of hating what I loved, I went in a different direction. But the direction still wasn't English.
Not just to learn how to write better, and improve my own skill level, but also, to research something new. Writing is a career path which allows one the luxury of never having to settle down into one particular field. Sure, in college I took English classes. Creative writing classes out the wazoo. But it wasn't the only thing I did. I didn't go to college with the goal of getting a BA in English. I hadn't intended on a liberal arts degree at all. I went to college for Wildlife Biology. My ultimate goal was to be a zookeeper, and write on the side, and while I was going to minor in English and suck up all the creative writing classes I could, it wasn't my academic priority.
Of course, Wildlife Biology wasn't really my calling, and I realized that the number and intensity of science classes it required was going to make me hate myself and my life and my education, so instead of hating what I loved, I went in a different direction. But the direction still wasn't English.
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