December 5 Questions

As per usual I have either boring answers or answers that modify or have
little to do with the question being asked. My apologies.


1. Is there anything from 100 years ago you'd like to see revived today 
   (e.g. motion picture films without preceding advertisements, serialized
   novels in general interest mass market periodicals, more people wearing
   hats and gloves)?

I don't think speculative fiction magazines were quite making the rounds
yet. I think, for example, Astounding started in 1930. So not quite 100
years. That said, I would love to see more short fiction and serialized
novels in periodical format. Good suggestion.

I suppose I would like to see jazz music back in the mainstream a bit,
but again we aren't quite to where I'd want to be as a lot of good stuff
(by my reckoning) didn't happen until the 30s (Count Basie, Duke Elington,
a bit later Artie Shaw).

I'd love a return of radio dramas, live radio shows with bands/singers,
radio game shows, etc. Okay, looking this up, it seems like this did not
really get to the point I am talking about until the 30s either. The
20s seemed to only have around 19% of households owning a radio and did
not have the larger variety of programming that would become available by
the mid 30s.

I am really striking out. Okay, last swing: dinner and dancing with a
live band. I'm not going to look it up, but I am going to decide that this
was more of a thing than now. While I'm at it I will add that I would
love a revival of musical literacy (more folks able to play an instrument
and potentially getting together in the evening to play or sing around
a piano or violin or the like). More community through music I suppose.


2. What's the best book you've read so far this year?

It has been a really really good reading year for me, both in quantity and
in quality. My reading list is here:

https://sloum.colorfield.space/reading.html#read-2025

So to answer the questions... It is very hard to choose. I am leaning to
"Hild" and its sequel, "Menewood", by Nicola Griffith. That is sort of
two I suppose, but they are a part of the same story. I really enjoyed
the setting/time period, the characters were great, it takes place over
a decent amount of time, allowing for a lot of character growth. The
writing was engaging and the story just really really good. I also like
the little bits of linguistic linkages to an earlier time (something I
also really liked in "The Wake" by Paul Kingsnorth from some years ago).
    
    
3. What's your favourite musical discovery ((sub-)subgenre, artist) this
   year?

It has been a big folk music (Ireland/Wales/Britain mostly) year for me.
I'll list two favorites, one older and one newer:
  - Anne Briggs. Specifically her first album. Favorite songs:
    Young Tambling, Willie o' Winsbury (Pentangle also does a good version)
  - Carys Hafana, the album Edyf. They mostly play harp on this album,
    sometimes with singing, sometimes without. Really great stuff.
             

4. Share up to five of your favourite 'foreign language' terms and 
   expressions, e.g. "sprezzatura" (Italian), "folie C  deux" (French). 

Nothing comes to mind. I'm on the edge of something in my brain in latin...
but cannot quite pull it out.

                  
5. You can have one person from any time in history call you for advice 
   and follow what you tell them to do. Whom would you like to have call you?

I suppose the premise of the question is that you could change history...
which brings me to my many complaints about the concept of time travel,
particularly as presented by films. Either you are on linear time and
being able to travel to the past and change things implies that you
were always going to do so and that the change is part of linear time,
which brings up questions of free will/predetermination... or there is
the branching concept, in which case you did not change anything, not
really, you just either created or accessed a branch where that happens,
leaving your original branch unchanged. Forward time travel, of course,
I have no issue with (as it is in keeping with how time generally works:
ever onward). This has all made me think about the novella "Story of
Your Life" by Ted Chiang. If you have not read it: find it and read it,
it is wonderful (the movie adaptation wasn't bad, but nowhere nearly as
good as the novella).

To return from my diversion/sidebar: I would want to have my grandfather
on my mother's side call me for advice. I would have no advice to give
him, and having been dead this past decade+ likely would not need advice,
I'd just really really like to hear is voice and talk to him again. I
miss him a lot (my Grandmother too, but the question was for one person
and I hope that she would not feel slighted that I chose him).