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Music and the Web, with kudos to Sub Pop [Jun. 23rd, 2008|05:00 pm]
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[music |Iron & Wine - House by the Sea]

So over lunch today I found myself thinking about music releases and the web. It would be incredibly handy, I was thinking, if I had a general way to see when my favorite bands release new albums. Maybe when they were on tour, too. In fact, it would be really extra‐special‐awesome if they would just export the information as a nice pretty data feed (RSS, or even better: Atom) so that I could use my favorite feed reader to keep up with my favorite bands.

Unfortunately, there’s a big problem with this idea. Musicians really suck at web design, and they don’t make enough money to hire someone who doesn’t suck at it. Traditionally the kind of information would fall nicely into the realm of the record labels, but most indie labels are only marginally more web‐savvy than their bands. Distributors could provide the information, but they’re more interested in record stores with their bulk orders than in individual consumers. And stores are much more interested in advertising their inventories than in general band information. So nobody really seems to be left to care about the information that I’m looking for, which is probably why what I’m looking for doesn’t appear to exist. I’m probably going to have to cobble it together from MusicBrainz’s web API (likely via their own libmusicbrainz).

Anyway, while I was poking around individual label sites looking for feed data, I happened to stop by Sub Pop’s site. Once I got over the shock of the monstrously evil and broken popup ad obscuring the front page, I was actually really impressed with their site. It doesn’t appear to have my holy grail of raw release data export, but it looks like it has everything short of that. It’s sensibly organized. It has tons of data about all of their artists. It has tour information and merch. It abuses Flash much less than the average media‐focused site.

On the techie side, their site uses a refreshingly intuitive URI scheme, which it appears to access in a basically RESTful fashion. It aims to use XHTML for content (though it doesn’t quite validate, unfortunately). It uses CSS (well!) for presentation, even to the point of providing a specialized stylesheet for print media. It uses JavaScript for interactive bits. It astoundingly marks up event data with hCalendar tags! It even provides sensible‐looking RSS data feeds, even if they’re not the ones I was looking for. Overall I was genuinely surprised by how good their website was compared to those of so many other labels. It wasn’t perfect (and I nearly closed the window after that grating popup), but it was hands‐down a million times better than any other indie label website I’ve ever visited. Kudos to your webdevs, Sub Pop, on the offchance that you ever stumble across this post.

(LJ Spellchecker Genius of the Day: XHTML -> STIMULI)
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Connectivity Day [Jun. 18th, 2008|10:13 am]
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[mood |geeky]
[music |The Bird and the Bee - Again & Again]

So in theory work likes me to… ya know… work. Ya know, usually at least. Today, however, I’m dubbing “Connectivity Day.” Why?

  • IBM corporate is switching the VPN software for (many of) its employees. This means I have to get the new VPN software installed and working on my laptop before tomorrow or else lose access.
  • My cell phone reception at home sucks big hairy donkey balls. This isn’t a problem in and of itself: it’s sufficient if I’m just sending texts or chatting with friends. But if I’m trying to take part in actual business conference call meetings, it’s just not acceptable. And I have another one of those tomorrow. Did I mention I don’t have a land line? Some of my coworkers have reported positive experiences with Vonage, so I’m going to see how quickly I can get that set up.
  • ISS, though now a subsidiary of IBM, still has its own private networks (in addition to IBM’s) and thus its own VPN connection. I’ve never had much luck trying to connect to it from my home Linux boxes, but it hasn’t been a problem because I haven’t really needed to access those resources from home. Well, now they’re testing a new VPN setup too, and they want me to try to get this new one set up from home. We’ll see how that goes….
  • I leave my home wireless completely open to make it easy for guests to connect. I watch for neighbors and cut them off if they’re too naughty. But since it’s open, I maintain a firewall to prevent wireless hosts from connecting to my private wired network. This hasn’t really been a problem, but it would be extra‐nice if I could VPN in from my wireless network to my wired network. If I have time today, I hope to get that set up.
  • And while I’m at it, I have a remote server on the ’net at a stable public IP address. It’s also not at my house. It would be nice to have a VPN set up between there and here so that I could connect from the server to devices on my home network. With some creative routing I could possibly even leverage that to allow VPN connections from other boxes (like our laptops where we’re not on our home wireless) into our home network, albeit slower thanks to the packetbouncing..

Sure, not all of that’s work‐related. I’m not sure I’ll have time for all of it. But it would be nice if in this day and age of connectivity I could actually connect to all of my resources. And as a software engineer who’s been living and breathing network security for the last seven or eight years, I really have no excuse. Fortunately, the only thing standing in my way is the time to get the kinks worked out.

So yeah, today’s “Connectivity Day.”

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The Fuzz [Jun. 17th, 2008|11:39 am]
[mood | curious]
[music |Neko Case - Things That Scare Me]

I drive up and down 400 between my office (near Perimeter) and home (in Cumming). Yesterday on the way home I saw three cops watching for speeders or pulling them over. Today on the way in I saw three more. Typically I might see one or two per week. And the ones I saw these past couple days have been watching from new locations. Is something up in the Fulton and Forsyth police departments? Is this just a weird week for some reason? Or is it just random chance that I’m driving down 400 at just the right time?
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Music music music [Jun. 16th, 2008|12:44 pm]
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[music |Radiohead - The National Anthem]

So I missed the Ladytron show at the Variety Playhouse last week. Too much higher‐priority stuff going on. A coworker made it to the show and said it was excellent, though he unfortunately missed the opener.

I’m really looking forward to the upcoming Raconteurs show (with The Kills opening! Yay!), and I might even make it to Stereolab and The Black Angels. I haven’t heard the latter, but I’ve heard a good word or two about them through the grapevine , and I like their opener, The Warlocks (well, OK, I’ve only heard their Phoenix Album, but I like it).

In studio releases, I’ve been getting a ton of playtime out of the Raconteurs’ new Consolers of the Lonely, which is leaps and bounds ahead of their sorta‐pretty‐good first offering, Broken Boy Soldiers. The earlier album was a little lackluster and didn’t do justice to their really amazing live performance last year. It’s that live performance that led me to grab their new album, and it’s those two combined that has me just plain bouncing to see the upcoming show.

Speaking of that show, I’ve been getting a good bit of play out of openers The Kills’ new album, Midnight Boom, too. They’ve got more of the sampling that I didn’t particularly like in No Wow (but inexplicably love in Portishead), but it’s got enough punch to really draw me in where their sophomore release just didn’t. The one big thing holding me back from loving Midnight Boom is that the lyrics really get a little cracked out sometimes. I mean, really, Alphabet Pony? Seriously? Anyway, good album nonetheless.

Other albums getting a lot of love from me lately include Scout Niblett’s new This Fool Can Die Now (I luff my Scout Niblett) and Liars’ not‐quite‐so‐new Drum’s Not Dead. No, scratch that. Anything Liars that I can get my hands on, I’m obsessing over. And my Scout. Yum.

In not‐really‐related news I’ve been digging into more borderline‐shoegaze lately, adding some Lush and Swervedriver (to whom Wikipedia refuse the name “shoegaze”) to my good ol’ Slowdive (who surely aren’t shoegaze if you ask wise Wikipedia) and not‐so‐ol’ Secret Machines (who are at best borderline shoegaze whomever you ask).

And more, I’m sure. But now it’s time to get back to work. Whee!

(LJ Spellchecker Genius of the Day: Wikipedia -> Skipped)
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Zeus libation, and local leadership [Jun. 14th, 2008|04:53 pm]
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[mood | contemplative]
[music |Cat Power - Up and Gone]

Today was our monthly libation with Hellenion. This month’s libation was to Zeus. As we do every month, a handful of us descended upon Big Trees Forest Preserve with a statue and oil. We read some traditional hymns to Zeus and libated some oil. And then we bopped off to the amazing Aladdin’s for a yummy social lunch.

Zeus has been near the front of my mind a bit lately. I mean, on the one hand Atlanta has been really short on rain lately. (It was thundering lightly all through the libation, and it drizzled a little on the way home.) But on another level, Zeus is the head of the family of the Gods, and He’s all about organizing people. In ancient times he was called βασιλευς (King) and βουλαιος (of the Council), and it’s in this regard that he’s really been close in my thoughts.

About a year ago, I attended the National Pagan Leadership Skills Conference, and it gave me a lot of food for thought. I met people who were doing things. Important things. Locally‐focused things, but with much farther‐reaching consequences. As only one example out of many, I met some folks from the Open Hearth Foundation, who are well on the way to building a sizable Pagan Community Center in the D.C. area. All of people there, though, were in involved in building up some sort of infrastructure to help support their fellow pagans.

And that message stuck well in my head. It’s had me thinking a lot this past year about how I can contribute to building that sort of infrastructure here in Atlanta. Not necessarily a pagan community center—though that would be wonderful—but the kind of organized community that makes it possible to even contemplate one. Ties between people who are doing things. Cooperation. City‐building. This first year I’ve been thinking mostly about my own little ritual group. I’ve still got a little bit of work that I want to do for it, but it’s largely on its feet thanks to the work of [info]radiantbaby, [info]wheezinggirl, and [info]mtn_hermit more than any contributions I’ve made. This coming year, though, I think I want to focus more on the broader local pagan community, to see what we all need, and how we can combine our efforts to build something truly great and lasting here in Atlanta.

It seems to me like a proper tribute to Zeus, a reflection of a simple libation on a broader scale.

(LJ Spellchecker Genius of the Day: libated -> bleated)
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Spellchecker, Unicode, and XCompose [Jun. 13th, 2008|08:24 am]
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[mood |geeky]
[music |Scout Niblett - Kiss]

When spellchecking my previous post, I noticed that the LJ Spellchecker does not grok Unicode. I never noticed this before because it wasn’t until sometime in the last year that I learned how to type things like curly apostrophes and proper dashes and the like at my keyboard.

( Here's how I did it. )

Now, with the poor Unicode support in the Spellchecker, I wonder how well it handles storing and sending those characters on plain ol’ webpages….

(LJ Spellchecker Genius of the Day: asciicircum -> Eskimo)
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State of the Ben [Jun. 13th, 2008|06:45 am]
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[mood | pleased]
[music |Portishead - Threads]

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted here. In fact, looking at my calendar, it was just before last year’s National Pagan Leadership Skills Conference. Since then I’ve been ridiculously busy. Life stuff. I haven’t posted about it here partially because I’ve been so caught up in doing it, and partially because I’ve been hoping to move this journal away from navel‐gazing and toward meaningful and applicable contributions to whoever might find my blog. I’m afraid I’ve overcorrected a bit, though. It seems I’ve simply stopped posting anything for fear that it wouldn’t be interesting enough. This is as silly as it is counterproductive.

Life’s been coming at me non‐stop since last July, and it’s been wonderful. It’s also been tiring, though. It hit me this morning that I haven’t been taking time in that wonderful non‐stop‐ness of life to figure out where I am, assess priorities, and figure out where I want to be. And so I’ve been rushing off after the loudest or shiniest thing that non‐stops at me. It’s actually worked much better than it’s had any business working. Nothing’s exploded, nobody’s died—well, nobody I know personally, anyway—and I’ve gotten a bunch of stuff done. Little stuff, mostly, but stuff. Ya wouldn’t know it reading my journal, though.

As nice as it’s been, and as much as I’ve been getting done, I realized this morning that it’s got me pretty tired, all of this non‐stop‐ness. I woke up early this morning and took a little much‐needed time to relax. Popped my head above the surface and took a deep breath. It was a refreshing feeling. And I decided that I would try to do it more often, maybe even every day. I might even reflect on it in here.

One thing that I do want to do here, though, is post more little things. Some of them will be tech‐y, since that is still my job. Some of them will be pagan, since that is still my religion. Some of it will be around‐the‐house stuff that I find neat so that my friends can see that I’m still alive and kicking even when I’m not out saving the world.

( But first, a quick recap. )

(LJ Spellchecker Genius of the Day: blog -> blag. Seriously. The LJ Spellchecker likes the word blag, but not blog. Beautiful.)
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Hellenismos ought to learn some things from the Neopagans [Jul. 25th, 2007|01:18 pm]
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[music |The Dirtbombs -- Possession]

I just spent more time than was probably wise replying to a post on a Hellenic email list I'm a member of. Since I put so much thought into it, I figured I'd repost it here. It's in reply to a post from Todd Jackson, but it's part of a longer thread. As such, this repost necessarily cuts out a lot of his context. Please consider this and the fact that Todd's words were not originally intended for this medium before forming any conclusions about anyone's opinions besides my own.

From Todd:
It's a beautiful "machine," Wicca. It very obviously addresses very fundamental human needs: desire for power; desire to be the "cool outsider"; to be "dark"; and then there's its perfectly-pitched response to gender anomie. Its festivals have exactly the right periodicity, about once every six weeks, and they're firmly set-not the wild scramble of Hellenismos festivals. It offers great opportunity for individual expression. You can be fluffy and light as you want, or you can really grow deep, as deep as one would like; something for every IQ level. It features all the Gods ever worshiped, from Apollon to Yoda, and yet doesn't insist upon *belief* in any deity, in anything beyond what you can see and touch-the Earth, the
wind, etc.


And my reply:
I can't shake the feeling that some of your comments here aren't intended to be entirely complimentary. Perhaps that's just the flatness of text interfering with real communication again. Regardless, I think we Hellenists as a group have something to learn from the success of neopaganism.

Power, the "cool outsider," and a "dark" reputation seem to be popular sometimes, but I think those all point to something deeper and more lasting. I have some ideas what that is, but none firm enough to form into a formal thesis. I think that we'd be well advised to understand that draw in our age and learn how it might be harnessed and directed toward something more meaningful than bad eyeliner.

The gender issue is more transparent. There's an undercurrent of gender bias in modern American culture. It's popular to demand that all gender bias is inherently unfair. I don't have the expertise to judge such a strong stance, but it seems plain to me that there are places where the cultural gender bias is inappropriate. Neopaganism in modern America rejects that. Whether it does so formally or as a de facto rule of the broad group is irrelevant: the result is that enough people are proclaiming it loudly enough that those in modern American culture who would get trampled under this bias are more likely to show interest in neopaganism. I think we'd be well advised to understand this cultural gender bias, its rejection, and how we as a religion can minister to those it aims to trample without alienating those undisturbed by it.

I see the festival scene changing in Hellenismos. Frankly, I'm trying to change it. People want dates that they can plan well in advance. You need that if you're going to have more than three people playing important roles in your festival. Whether that's defined according to the Gregorian calendar or the moon phases reported by the USNO website, it must be reliable and understandable to the average worshiper, or the worshiper simply will not attend.

I firmly hold that any religion intended for public consumption absolutely must provide opportunities for worship to those at any level of spiritual development, and it must accept that people do not all progress in the same ways, at the same rates, or toward the same ultimate ends. Modern American neopaganism -- if any generalization can be made about so diverse a group -- seems to expect each person to direct his own spiritual development, with community support often minimal and indirect at best. I feel Hellenismos would be better served by more focus on the gentle support of the spiritual development of its novice adherents, but it's vital to maintain the dignity of the simple worshiper who is happy to carry the incense at ritual and seeks no deeper wisdom.

And on your final point, it's true: modern American neopaganism will incorporate any God ever worshiped and yet doesn't insist upon any particular orthodoxy. Some cite this as one of its greatest strengths. I maintain that we can learn something from this. It would likely be foolish for many of us to try to incorporate the full breadth of this acceptance into our personal practice. Still, if some neopagan neophyte is looking for a deeper understanding of the similarities between Hermes and Coyote, it is more honor to our Gods to give them honest information than to start bitching about neopagan syncretism.

So yeah, I think we do have a lot to learn from the neopagans. They've got some practical basics well figured out, even if I disagree with a lot of their philosophies.


(LJ Spellchecker Genius of the Day: Apollon -> Napoleon)
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Aoidai 4: Homeric Hymn XXIX, line 1, word 4: ἐν [Jul. 23rd, 2007|10:26 pm]
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In the first installment of the Αοιδαί project we began a word-by-word examination of Homeric Hymn XXIX to Hestia. It begins:
ἑστίη, ἣ πάντων ἐν δώμασιν ὑψηλοῖσιν

Today we continue with the fourth word, ἐν. It is both transliterated and pronounced, simply, "en". We'll translate it as "in".
( ἐν )
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My little brother is famous [Jul. 20th, 2007|10:17 am]
And not just stupid-boring hometown famous, either. He made the xkcd blag. Yeah, other people have done the same thing, but this is immaterial. My brother made the xkcd blag. :-)
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Tritogeneia [Jul. 14th, 2007|03:18 pm]
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In today's Athena libation we read one of Her Homeric Hymns. The hymn includes the epithet Tritogeneia (Τριτογενῆ). After the ritual, one of the ritualgoers asked the meaning of this epithet. I had to admit that I didn't know. So I did some checking up. Apparently there are a lot of theories.

Here's what The Theoi Project has to say about it:
TRITO or TRITOGENEIA (Tritô or Tritogeneia and Tritogenês), a surname of Athena (Hom. Il. iv. 515, Od. iii. 378; Hes. Theog. 924), which is explained in different ways. Some derive it from lake Tritonis in Libya, near which she is said to have been born (Eurip. Ion. 872 ; Apollod. i. 3. § 6; comp. Herod. iv. 150, 179); others from the stream Triton near Alalcomenae in Boeotia, where she was worshipped, and where according to some statements she was also born (Paus. ix. 33. § 4; comp. Hom. Il. iv. 8); the grammarians, lastly, derive the name from tritô which, in the dialect of the Athamanians, is said to signify "head," so that it would be the goddess born out of the head of her father. (Schol. ad Apollon. Rhod. iv. 1310; comp. Hom. Hymn. 28. 4 ; Hes. Theog. 924.)


And here's the remarkably similar LSJ entry, via Perseus:
Τρῑτο-γένεια, ἡ, (γίγνομαι) Trito-born, a name of Athena, Hom. Il. 4.515, au=Hom. Il. 8.39, Hom. Od. 3.378, Hes. Th. 895,au=Hes. Th. 924, IG14.1389ii 1. (Variously expld. in antiquity, from the lake Τριτωνίς in Libya, from which an old legend represents the goddess to have been born, Eur. Ion 872 (anap.), cf. Hdt. 4.180; or from Triton, a torrent in Boeotia, Paus. 9.33.7, cf. Apollod. 1.3.6; or from a spring in Arcadia, Paus. 8.26.6; or from τριτώ, Aeol. word for κεφαλή (Sch.Aristoph. Cl. 985, Tz.ad Lyc.519; Athamanian acc. to Nic.(Fr.145) ap.Hsch.), i.e. head-born; or, born on the third day of the month, Ister 26 (the 23rd, τρίτῃ φθίνοντος, Sch.BT Hom. Il. 8.39); or, the third child after Apollo and Artemis, Suid. s.v. τριτογενής; or, as representing Nature, born thrice in the year, D.S.1.12; or because she was author of the three main bonds of social life, Democr.1b,au=Democr. 1b2=lr.)

II. the Pythagoreans gave the name Ἀθηνᾶ τ. to the equilateral triangle, Plu.2.381e; cf. τρεῖς, τριάς.
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Aoidai 3: Homeric Hymn XXIX, line 1, word 3: πάντων [Jun. 28th, 2007|12:27 pm]
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In the first installment of the Αοιδαί project we began a word-by-word examination of Homeric Hymn XXIX to Hestia. It begins:
ἑστίη, ἣ πάντων ἐν δώμασιν ὑψηλοῖσιν

Today we continue with the third word, πάντων. It is transliterated "panton" and pronounced "PAN - ton". We'll translate it roughly as "of everyone".
( πάντων )
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On litanies of epithets: an appeal to my fellow Hellenic polytheists [Jun. 27th, 2007|11:56 am]
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One practice common in modern Hellenic polytheist practice is addressing a God with a long litany of epithets. The practice comes straight from classical sources. You can't read a myth about Aphrodite without hearing Her called Laughter-loving, Golden, and half a dozen others. You can't read a story about Hermes without hearing Him called Wily one, Slayer of Argos, and many more.

And modern pagans seem to love collecting these epithets. If you pull up any web page dedicated to a God you're sure to see a list of them. Usually this list includes the epithet in English. Sometimes it'll include a transliteration of the original Greek that it was translated from, and occasionally you can even reconstruct the original Greek itself from the information provided. But it's downright rare to see any explanation or context or a reference to more information.

Not to say that such a list isn't valuable. While we may all know Zeus as Basileus and Keraunios ("King" and "Of the Thunderbolt" according to his page at theoi.com), it can be helpful to remember that sometimes he's also Kosmetes "Orderer" and even Labrandeus "Furious, or Raging". It can be helpful to remember Dionysos as Anthroporraistos "Man-Slayer" as much as he's Lysios "Releasing".

But really, what good does it do me to know that Dionysos is also Kolotes "Spotted Gecko" or Erebinthinos "Of the Chickpea"? The vast majority of these lists of epithets provide absolutely no explanation or context for these names. They don't explain what that name means to them. They don't reference any sources -- classical or modern -- that might provide a hope of understanding the term. Some hope that the name will speak for itself, like Ares Miaiphonos "Blood-stained" clearly does. Others just like the idea of being completists.

And to their credit, completists are well-attested in classical sources. Take a look at the Homeric Hymns sometime and you'll see hymns that list attributes connected to each other only in that they honor the same God. Take a look at the later Orphic Hymns and you'll see even more agglomerated litanies. I've heard claims that classical worshipers often did this in prayer, too, though I haven't studied this myself. And from this same tradition many modern websites aiming suggestions at new Hellenic polytheists recommend beginning prayers with as long a list of epithets as they can manage.

This litany of obscure epithets is certainly well-attested in history, but for today it lacks a vital component. It wants the component of reference. It needs context. In ancient times when poets sang of Hephaistos Amphigueeis "Lame One", listeners were reminded of the story of how He was thrown from high Olympos at His birth. When they called to Hera Argeia it reminded them of Her cult in Argos, either in their memory or in their imagination. And it's those connections that breathed life into their world and into their understanding of the Gods.

Modern pagans need this context. Lists of epithets are an adequate starting point, if only barely. The second step must carry them into more depth about the stories behind these names. They can be old stories, or they can be new stories. But please, if you're a leader in the Hellenic community, if you write rituals, if you maintain a devotional web page or even an informational one, please don't just give your audience a list. They can find that list a million places already. Point them to one, and then breathe life into their understanding of the Gods by giving them context.

(LJ Spellchecker Genius of the Day: Lysios -> Lushes)
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Aoidai 2: Homeric Hymn XXIX, line 1, word 2: ἣ [Jun. 26th, 2007|10:10 am]
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In the first installment of the Αοιδαί project we began a word-by-word examination of Homeric Hymn XXIX to Hestia. It begins:
ἑστίη, ἣ πάντων ἐν δώμασιν ὑψηλοῖσιν

Today we continue with the second word, ἣ. It is transliterated he, and it is pronounced "heh". We'll translate it roughly as "who", as in, "the one who."
( ἣ )
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Après Moi [Jun. 25th, 2007|11:46 am]
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[mood | impressed]
[music |Regina Spektor -- Après Moi]

Wow. Is she really doing that? Is this really portraying the struggle to retain order in the face of impending violent social revolution? In a song? Is she really tying in the French and Bolshevik Revolutions by quoting Louis XV (in French) and Boris Pasternak (in Russian)? Is that a carefully-twisted reference to the Beatitudes in there? And is it just me, or is she channeling Amanda Palmer for this sound?

And it's good! All that and it actually fits together and makes a good song. Wow. I'm truly impressed.

Good music and it makes me google and read history and poetry. I think I heart Regina Spektor.
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Aoidai 1: Homeric Hymn XXIX, line 1, word 1: ἑστίη [Jun. 24th, 2007|06:23 pm]
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I put the idea forth two days ago. Today it begins. I've chosen the name Αοιδαί, transliterated Aoidai, and generally translated "songs". We'll see more of this word later.

I begin the project with Homeric Hymn 29 to Hestia, who is always first and last. The Hymn contains an invocation of Hermes as well, messenger of the Gods, which seems somehow appropriate for this project. The Hymn begins:
ἑστίη, ἣ πάντων ἐν δώμασιν ὑψηλοῖσιν


Today's word is the first in this line, ἑστίη. It may be transliterated hestie, and it is pronounced "Hess - TEE - eh". This word calls out to Hestia, goddess of the Hearth in ancient Greece.

Pronunciation


The ancient Greeks distinguished between short and long vowels. This distinction played an important role in verse, as we'll see when we finish each line. Today's word has three vowels: ε, ι, and η. The vowel ε is always short. The vowel ι may be either short or long, but it is short in this word. The vowel η is always long. If you listen to today's word, you'll hear that the long third vowel is about twice the length of each of the first two short ones.

The ancient Greeks also distinguished pitches in their words. In today's word you'll see an accent on the ι. With this accent, ι becomes ί. When a vowel has this type of accent in ancient Greek, it is pronounced at a higher pitch than the other sounds in the word. If you listen to today's word, you'll hear that higher pitch.

The concepts of length and pitch are completely separate in anceint Greek. When you listen to today's word, note that even though the middle vowel's pitch is raised, it's still short like the first vowel, not long like the last.

Grammar


Ending like this in -η, today's word is used to call out to Hestia. Ancient Greek makes a distinction between the different ways that a word might function in a sentence. It has one word for Hestia when you're calling out to her. It has a slightly different one for when you're saying she did something. It has another for when she has something, and another for when you're giving something to her. Grammarians call these different functions "cases". The particular case we use here is called "vocative case". It is used to call out to someone.

Other uses


We translated today's word as "Hestia", goddess of the hearth in ancient Greece. Sometimes, though, the word has other uses. In other contexts, the Greeks used the same word to refer to the hearth itself or to a fireside. It also has a closely-related verb form, which means "to receive at one's hearth or in one's house; to entertain, feast, regale."

According to The Perseus Digital Library, Hestia's name is used 8 times in the Homeric Hymns and 262 times in its entire collection of Greek texts.
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Possible classical sources project [Jun. 22nd, 2007|12:16 am]
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So I been thinkin' lately. I do that. One of the neat ideas that I thought I might spend some blogtime on is an analysis of classical sources. But not just any ol' analysis. No, I'm far too pedantic for that. I want do do a word-by-word analysis.

My idea is basically to take some classical source -- probably some Homer or Hesiod or something -- and go through through it with a fine-toothed comb. The first day I'll pick the first word of my text. I'll post the word in the ancient Greek. Probably transliterate it. Maybe find a microphone and record it with Attic and Homeric pronunciation, or maybe just give a guide to pronunciation. Talk about how pitch and length accents apply to this word. Possibly ramble about some detail of pronunciation for a paragraph or two, but all still just on the sound of the word.

Then I'll look up the word. I'd give a definition or two of the root word from Liddell & Scott. I'll talk about the cases and tenses and whatever else is relevant to understanding the usage of the word. Maybe I'll ramble about some random subtlety of grammar as well as I'm able, but still sticking to the grammar of the word.

And finally I'll find and share some other ways that root word has been used and translated in classical sources. Depending on what Perseus gives me I might find a bunch, or I might not find but a word or two. And maybe with that I'll be able to share more subtlety of meaning, or maybe show how the word has changed over time. Not sure how that part would go.

And then the next day I'd go back to my classical source and do the next word.

Maybe sometimes I'd do two words if one of them's simple. There are only so many times you can explain the "men ... de" construction before it gets old, after all. And other days I won't have time to post anything at all. Sometimes I'll take a break from single words to glue together an entire phrase or sentence. I'm particularly looking forward to analyzing the meter of each line, and if I have a microphone set up by then I'll definitely record each whole line. Maybe whole sections.

This is probably all going to happen, though whether sooner or later I'm not yet sure. Are my loyal readers (all two or three of you) interested? Do you have any particular source you want to see me approach first? Part of me's tempted to start with The Iliad or The Odyssey, but then I'd quite possibly never finish. Ever. I could do some Homeric Hymns or perhaps a play and maybe make some progress. On the other hand, sticking with a single source for a Very Long Time may not necessarily be a bad thing.

What think ye, oh readers who've actually made it this far?

(Spellchecker Genius of the Day: blogtime -> bulged)
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Selective web resyndication [Jun. 21st, 2007|10:24 am]
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[music |Violent Femmes -- Blister in the Sun]

So for a few days prior to restarting this journal, I was considering what to do with it. How to approach it. Or even if I wanted to use this one or start a new one somewhere else -- somewhere that I can write the code myself.

*drool*

Sorry, got distracted there for a sec. So I decided that since I don't have the code fully ready and handy, I'll just keep this one up for now. One thing I realized that I wanted to do, though, is related to reposting other people's content. See, sometimes I want to write my own content, but sometimes I just want to call my friends' attention to some intriguing content that someone else has posted. Take yesterday's Hutton/Frew post for instance. There's a fundamental difference between that -- where I just post a link to other people's content -- and yesterday's Commonwealth Club post -- where I actually babble a bit in my own words. The difference is that my Hutton/Frew post didn't add any content. It existed solely to point to other content.

There are enough pointers to content on the web, and often not enough actual content.

Not that there's a problem with posting a quick "Hey, you guys might want to check out this link" post. Far from it. Thing is, the Atom syndication format has a nifty way of thinking of those kinds of reposts. RSS does, too, but like most things in RSS, Atom does it better. I ran into Atom's way of reposting content when I was working on some code to syndicate the sehellenes.org site news.

See, every Atom feed (and most RSS feeds too, truth be told) gives each entry its own magical unique id. If I'm posting my own content, it'll get its own article id that other people -- well, programs mostly -- can reference and toss around. This post has one. Each of yesterday's posts has one. The article I referenced yesterday could have one if it were syndicated (we'll gloss over the fact that it's not).

One of the results of each post having its own unique id is that I could technically pick up a post from one blog and paste it directly into another blog, assuming I can post to the latter blog in the first place. I could take Hutton's article (again, glossing over the fact that it's not a blog post) and just stick it directly into my blog. In fact, I could make a whole blog of nothing but other people's blog posts that I think are interesting. And it would all be right there in front of you like any other feed, not in short content-less posts with links to the meat.

As I'm writing it out here, it feels like I'm not conveying very well how damned nifty this is. And not just from a tech-geek standpoint, either, but from a pure ease of information sharing perspective. It's damned clean. And I want to do it. I can't here on LJ, I'm pretty sure. But when I get around to coding up my own blog software, it will happen. And it will be much yayness.

(LJ Spellchecker Genius of the Day: reposts -> repeats)
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Ron Hutton takes on Don Frew [Jun. 20th, 2007|03:51 pm]
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[music |Sonic Youth -- Turquoise Boy]

Just a quick link here. Partially for my own later reference (as I don't have time to read the entire article at work), and partially because I know a handful of folks on my friends list will appreciate it.

Paganism and Polemic: The Debate over the Origins of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, by Ronald Hutton, in which the author responds directly to a 1998 Don Frew article apparently calling into question some of Hutton's own conclusions in Triumph of the Moon.

(Edit: Thanks to [info]kallistos for posting the link!)
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A confession, radio debate, and polytheism [Jun. 20th, 2007|11:50 am]
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[music |Sonic Youth -- Master-Dik]

I have a confession. I was a little late to work this morning. Only fifteen minutes or so, and my job doesn't really require me to interact with people, so it's not a big deal.

In fact, some days I really actually sort of like being late. Not so much for what makes me late -- this morning I was preparing the Dreaming Dionysia script for posting -- as for what I get to hear on the way down. See, on Wednesday mornings at 10, Album 88 plays syndicated recordings from The Commonwealth Club of California, and usually I find them great food for thought, even when I don't particularly agree with them. This morning's start was right up there on the great listening scale.

This morning, Album 88 was playing an old program, Religion in US Culture and Society, recorded on April 23, 2007. Yeah, they're a little behind. But the topic was right up my alley. They had three panelists. I didn't catch most of their names, but one was a rabbi, and a second was from a major publisher. The third was Stephen Prothero, the Chair of the Department of Religion at Boston University.

I found their different perspectives fascinating for the few minutes I got to listen in my car. After introductions, the moderator began the session by asking each of the panelists what the role of religion is and should be in American society. The answers varied a bit, but it was interesting to hear a common theme of reclaiming religion in public society. If you'd asked that question some years ago -- and even today in many circles -- you'd get a quick reprimand that we are a secular society and that religion has no place in polite discussion. If any argument has its basis in religion, common wisdom would go, then a responsible adult should find a secular root for that religious argument and present only that. We would essentially whitewash religious discussion from society.

I agree with the panelists' general consensus that this change has happened, and I even agree that overall it's a good thing. One panelist pointed out that polite dialog for many years has been based on the idea of finding a root consensus from which everyone could relate and politely share experience and views. I hear that quite a lot in pagan and new age circles. It's all about finding a single root basis from which can grow a single deeper understanding of the issue from all perspectives. It feels very Platonic -- or maybe Neoplatonic.

The panelist's point continued, though, that there can be a place for polite disagreement and respectful argument of the merits of a case without that root consensus. Even when an argument comes down to a basis in religious or philosophical belief, people can argue the merits of the argument. And if that means that the parties disagree because they value the philosophical bases differently then so be it. They disagree.

This thought process reminds me strongly of the stark difference between a monotheistic worldview and a polytheistic one. In the monotheistic worldview, reality boils down to one common basic force: God. In that worldview it makes sense to boil all understanding to a core basic philosophy and grow the world out of that. Arguments boil down to a consensus about basic terms and realities, and they grow a set of values and precepts from those.

In contrast, the polytheistic worldview usually boils down to a multitude of basic forces, numbered anywhere from a small handful into thousands. It's not clear that there's a unity behind them, and ultimately it doesn't matter if that unity exists or not. Arguments similarly boil down not to a core consensus, but to a collection of core values in respectful conflict. Sides are chosen for the argument based on real applicability just as gods are chosen for prayer.

In a world like ours with so many starkly different religious beliefs in the close contact provided by this age of information, the search for a core basis of belief or a core understanding of values has regularly proved futile. The modern world needs a basis for respectful discussion in the face of deep value disagreement, and polytheism provides a religious expression of that basis. And as a natural reaction to that need, the world is gradually growing more polytheistic -- deeply polytheistic, not just surface-polytheistic-with-monotheistic-underpinning -- whether it realizes it or not. It's a fascinating process to watch.

The Commonwealth Club panelists didn't descend into the relative merits of monotheism and polytheism, of course. If any of them had any blatantly polytheistic beliefs then it wasn't at all discernible from the fifteen minutes or so that I heard of the program. But the deep-running core of polytheistic respectful disagreement shone through to me, and it put a big smile on my face as I drove into work this morning.

For any who are interested, The Commonwealth Club maintains a podcast of their syndicated broadcasts. It's usually good listening. Even if when I don't quite agree with what they have to say, they do a good job of tracing the matter back to root values where respectful disagreement can begin.

(LJ Spellchecker Genius of the Day: Dionysia -> Doings)
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