help with Venetian dialect

Jul. 6th, 2025 06:05 pm
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[personal profile] dinogrrl posting in [community profile] little_details
Hello wonderful people!

I've got a fantasy story that's set in early 18th-century Venice. I don't speak Italian, and definitely don't know the difference between the various regional dialects, so I'm looking for some help with a nickname in Venetian.

I have a priest who can use magic, who is not exactly a nice guy. Nobody likes to be around him, he's the kind of person you can just tell will erupt like a magic-spewing volcano the moment something doesn't go his way. My main character is ten when she first meets him and has a very visceral Do Not Like reaction to him, comparing him to a pack of rabid dogs. She is not told his name at the time, so in her mind she dubs him Father Mad Dog (creative, I know).

Several years ago I tried to parse "Father Mad Dog" into Italian/Venetian, and I don't know where I came to the conclusion that it'd be "Don Can' Pazzo" but that's what I've been using. I guess somewhere along the line I was under the impression that cane would get shortened to can when used like this. Is any of this correct? Or do I need another phrase entirely?

1984 revisited

Jul. 6th, 2025 11:41 am
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[personal profile] calimac
The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell's 1984, Dorian Lynskey. (Doubleday, 2019)

B. is re-reading 1984, first time since high school. I also read it in high school, not I think for a class, but I've never attempted to re-read it. It's the bleakest, darkest novel I've ever read, it was searingly memorable and remains fresh in my thoughts, but I don't ever want to delve into it again. I've re-read other dystopias, like The Handmaid's Tale, but Offred remains defiant until the end. Orwell's Winston is just totally crushed, and the rest of the book tends to foreshadow that.

So instead I read this book about 1984. It's in two parts. Orwell said that 1984 was the summation of everything he'd read and done since the Spanish Civil War, which is where he discovered that both sides can be totalitarian. Lynskey goes through all of the ingredients, directly contributory or not, spending a lot of attention on Animal Farm, which is deeply thematically related. Lynskey also disposes of any notion that the year 1984 is any sort of code for 1948, as often suggested. That Winston's environment is based on austerity post-war Britain is a red herring. Orwell picked that as something he could depict, not out of secret hatred of the Labour government.

Orwell died less than a year after the book was published. The second half is the book's posthumous career. This includes consideration of just about every major dystopia concocted in English-language literature or film since then, even if (like Fahrenheit 451 or Brazil) they've little to do with and weren't inspired by 1984. There's also a long and gratifyingly detailed discussion of The Prisoner. But it also covers film and stage adaptations of 1984 itself, and lots of what people have said about the book or about What Orwell Would Be Saying Today. About this last genre, Lynskey is appropriately caustic. "The most inflammatory reputation grab was a story by Norman Podhoretz. 'Normally, to speculate on what a dead man might have said about events he never lived to see is a frivolous enterprise,' he acknowledged, before gamely pressing on to insist that an octogenarian Orwell would have said that Norman Podhoretz was right."

Orwell's particular balanced perspective is widely misunderstood. Normally, especially in Orwell's day but even now, critics of fascism and other leftists tend to make excuses for the Soviet Union and other communist regimes: they're not so bad, Stalin's show trials were misjudged, etc. Visitors to the USSR like Bernard Shaw were totally gulled. Even Jon Carroll writing on Elian Gonzalez thought that Elian's mother was unhinged to make a dangerous flight from the communist paradise of Cuba. And anti-communists tend to have a similar soft spot for the right. Jeane Kirkpatrick praising any dictatorship on the map as long as it was right-wing. Robert Conquest, brilliant excoriator of Soviet terror, offering comparisons as if making excuses for everyone else except the Nazis.

Orwell wasn't like that. He hated totalitarianism, and he hated it equally from either side of the spectrum. He didn't think that the sins of one side made the other side acceptable. People can't see that balance, especially right-wingers who see the depiction of the Soviet-style government in 1984 and especially the Soviet allegory in Animal Farm and assume Orwell would be a right-winger, in favor of capitalism. You'd have to ignore the opening of Animal Farm entirely to think that.

Somebody once summarized Orwell's philosophy - and I think Lynskey quotes this but I can't find it now - as "Capitalism is a disease, socialism is the cure, and communism would kill the patient." Keep that in mind, and your preconceptions won't fool you about Orwell.

Done Since 2025-06-29

Jul. 6th, 2025 02:51 pm
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[personal profile] mdlbear

It doesn't feel like a very productive week, but I have gotten a few things done. Five (short) walks, four (short) guitar practice sessions, some patio furniture assembled (one Adirondack chair fully assembled, the other partly assembled, table unboxed).

The Adirondak chairs each have a curved, removable leg-rest. It's not exactly an ottoman, so I've decided it needs to be called a nottaman -- hence this post's music.

The weather has gone from unpleasantly hot to pleasantly cool (with a reverse or two) over the course of the week; we are now enjoying a light rain. Or at least I am -- I'm the one who sits closest to the sliding door in the living room. It opens to half the width of the house, and fortunately has a screen behind it. Because cats.

Between ADT and anemia, my body's temperature sensing has become very wonky; I feel like I'm freezing at temperatures that the rest of the household thinks are too hot, but if I put on something warm I quickly become overheated. It is not conducive to sleeping well. I don't so much mind having the cats wake me in the middle of the night, because my bladder is also wonky, but it would be nice to be able to get to (or back to) sleep in a reasonable amount of time. On the flip side, if all goes well I won't have to talk to a urologist until November.

Not much to say about what's going on in the US. But One Million Rising: Strategic Non-Cooperation to Fight Authoritarianism · No Kings looks like something you can do.

And go watch The FIRST images from the RUBIN observatory! - YouTube

Notes & links, as usual )

Wake Up, Kevin

Jul. 5th, 2025 09:30 pm
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[personal profile] kevin_standlee
I had to come out of hibernation this morning, because we concluded that due to needed to be at Westercon/BayCon through the end of the convention on Monday, we had to stay an extra day. Fortunately, I brought one of my work computers and was able to put the PTO request. I called the front desk and they told me that while they could extend my stay, I couldn't get the convention rate and it would cost more than $100 more per night. I winced but said yes. Then I had to go down and get our keys recoded because I'm the one with the ID. I then handed everything back over to Kayla.

talk to the police

Jul. 5th, 2025 07:29 pm
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[personal profile] calimac
Every once in a while YouTube shows me a link to a video urging its watchers never to talk to the police. I've never watched one of these videos - lectures on haranguing topics are not a high priority in my life - but I have looked the question up on Quora and Reddit. There it appears that the urgers don't mean this literally. For instance, when I was in a crumpling three-car auto accident, calling the police and talking to them could hardly be avoided, and it was clear that I wasn't at fault.

But otherwise the answer seems to depend on who's giving it. Police writing say that innocent people should always talk with the police, who just want to gather as much evidence as possible. Others, especially lawyers, say no! no! Whenever there's a crime involved, ask to get a lawyer first. Some say only if you're being detained to be questioned.

And the reason for all this is that the more you say, the more opportunity the police have to twist your words into evidence of your guilt. I know this happens. I've seen a number of accounts of cases where the police, having made a preliminary survey, take a first guess as to the culprit, and then devote the entirety of their attention to finding, sometimes even concocting, evidence of that person's guilt, ignoring anything that points to their innocence or to guilt lying in another direction.

OK, I thought, but if you're an innocent person terrified that the police might fasten on you as the presumed guilty suspect, wouldn't defensive insisting on a lawyer only make the police more likely to suspect you?

I just found some evidence, admittedly in a fictional movie, for that point of view. The movie was The Town, which I came across on Netflix. I hadn't heard of it, so I looked it up on Wikipedia and found that it was a crime drama which got good reviews. So I watched it, and it was indeed a good movie. It's about a bank robber, played by Ben Affleck, who falls in love with his hostage. Well, it's more complicated than that. First the robbers, who are masked during the crime, let the hostage go. Then they decide to tail her, and that's how Affleck meets her without her having any idea that he's one of the bank robbers. It's set in Boston, which I think is required for movies starring Ben Affleck, and is full of Boston accents coming out of unlikely people like Jeremy Renner.

Anyway, quite early on, the ex-hostage (Rebecca Hall) is being interviewed by the lead FBI agent (Jon Hamm). Worried that she might be considered complicit because she opened the safe at the robbers' orders, she asks, "Should I have a lawyer here?" and he replies, "This isn't a very civil libertarian thing of me to say, but anyone who lawyers up is guilty."

So I guess you should take that under advisement too.

The Stereo Bus Goes Round and Round

Jul. 5th, 2025 07:02 pm
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[personal profile] billroper
I have guitar tracks for the last three songs to replace the scratch track. They may yet need some more work, but they are in good enough shape I think.

I then went back to record revised scratch vocals for those songs so I could drop out the original guitar. I got through two out of three songs before the iPad that I am using for a remote control announced that it was out of power and would like to retire for today.

So tomorrow! Tomorrow will be good for this.

looking for a link/website

Jul. 5th, 2025 02:43 pm
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] redbird
Sometime in the last couple of months, someone posted a link to a site that had interesting looking shirts made of linen, for lower prices than most places charge. I forgot to bookmark it. Can anyone point me to it? or to something else that fits that description, even if you didn't see it here?


Edited to add: A the shirts were less expensive than I expected, which is a large part of why I'm interested. Those may have been sale prices, I don't remember.

Also, the were made of either linen or a linen blend, not "line".

(no subject)

Jul. 5th, 2025 03:08 am
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[personal profile] vvalkyri
I'm in a tent kind of hard far from the house. It's not really technically all that far from the house but it's in a little alcove of woods. Now I keep hearing the animals I guess making things crackle
And it's mildly freaking me out and I really do need to go to sleep cuz it's after 3:00 and I'm sure people will be up fairly soon.

I guess I'll put earplugs in and hope I don't turn into a snack.

. .. oh cool. When I look out the tent windows I can see fireflies. I have thought they don't go to sleep hours ago.

Too much tree cover and too much
Light from Winchester for stars from here.

Happy 4th. Happy birthday mom. We could see some fireworks far away. Many many sets

I'm still kind of annoyed with myself for not staying over last night too. But that's okay. It's been a good evening.

It's amazing how late I manage to stay up regardless of when I try.

Really weird thing is the birds have never been quiet.

Looking forward to visiting more in the morning. I think I very much do like this little Walmart tent, three sardine. Works well when everything's mostly in the car. Someday I guess I have to try it out in the rain.

well ...

Jul. 4th, 2025 05:04 pm
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[personal profile] calimac
With the country in the state it's in, I needed something offbeat to commemorate Independence Day, and then YouTube dropped this in my lap:

Frank Sinatra sings "America the Beautiful"
(an impression by Mel Brooks)

Once More, With Feeling

Jul. 4th, 2025 04:30 pm
billroper: (Default)
[personal profile] billroper
Back to the studio again and just about to start recording. We'll see how much I get done.

A note about the new computer. The previous computer, which is still on the network and which needs to keep its unique name, is "Thunderbolt", although the Thunderbolt card that prompted the name has been removed.

The *new* computer is named "Cei-u".

If you know why, you will know exactly why that is appropriate.
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[personal profile] turbobeholder posting in [community profile] girlgenius_lair
Just think of the possibilities!
vvalkyri: (Default)
[personal profile] vvalkyri
I've been running running running for so long.
And then when I'm not I just lose so much time.
And then it was 4a when I got to sleep last night after figuring I'd go to the Blues because of the DJs but it took me so long that I got there at 1045 and it's over 1130 . . . and the rest was fallen into the phone.

Danced with a couple of the VA Beach guys, but felt off kilter at the dance. Highly aware of not being a sought after partner. Or imagining that.

Could have driven out to the farm where I'm camping tonight after festivities. Probably should have. Ironically if I'd not brought my duffel upstairs there was almost noghting I'd have needed. Have tent and spare and mattress and spare in the car still, and there was laundry that could have become clothes for today and tomorrow. I think bug spray and sunscreen are also still in the car.

It's 2p. I need to get more moving.

I'm sure a lot of this is shock that the BBB passed. And there's SO MUCH bad. So much that people hadn't even really noticed. This'll trigger reconciliation which will affect medicare. Stuff with education. ICE as more funding than defense in several countries. 45mil just for building more detention.

And most states call medicaid something other than medicaid.

Most of the cuts and additional paperwork hoops won't come in until after the midterms. That's of course on purpose.

welp

Jul. 4th, 2025 11:24 am
jazzfish: an evil-looking man in a purple hood (Lord Fomax)
[personal profile] jazzfish
In Minneapolis, where it is overly Warm but where there were decent fireworks and a lightning-filled thunderhead last night. Feeling some kind of way about the political situation, for sure.

Have some links.

UPDATE! Breaking News: Everything Is Bad. (This is absolutely worth your two and a half minutes, I promise.)

Edward Gorey’s "Great Simple Theory About Art" is essential reading for writers: "[T]he theory ... that anything that is art ... is presumably about some certain thing, but is really always about something else, and it’s no good having one without the other, because if you just have the something it is boring and if you just have the something else it's irritating." That last bit puts me in mind of James Nicoll's "I don't object to hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface."

ICEBlock: "ICEBlock is an innovative, completely anonymous crowdsourced platform that allows users to report Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity with just two taps on their phone." US only, and iOS only at the moment. Via jwz, who notes "The cowards at Time wrote a whole article about the app and didn't include a link to it".

methaphone: "methaphone can help you manage cravings and withdrawal symptoms. It can fill that hole in your back pocket. ... methaphone looks like a simple acrylic slab -- and it is." I kinda want one. (I am a sucker for glass and lucite.)

July 4th

Jul. 4th, 2025 11:55 am
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] redbird
Jay Kuo takes a break from chronicling the regime's crimes to share some honest hope for today, and the days and months ahead:

https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/celebrating-independence

On to Westercon

Jul. 3rd, 2025 11:27 pm
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[personal profile] kevin_standlee
I got away from home at 5:30, but immediately had to stop for fuel because I forgot to refuel last night. I also stopped in Reno to grab a breakfast sandwich, Donner Summit for the rest area, Colfax for coffee and a restroom, Lodi Junction to refuel, Livermore for coffee, and Fremont to buy Kayla some nail polish remover because she forgot to pack some, before getting to the Marriott about 1:30 PM. That's really good time for me. I managed to miss Reno and Sacramento's rush hours, and when I reached the Bay Area, I was going against the holiday get-away traffic.

Moving In )

I am not sure if I'll post much about the convention while it's going on. Friday in particular is super-busy, with the Preliminary WSFS Business Meeting online at 9 AM, and the Opening Ceremony of BayCon/Westercon at 1 PM, followed by Site Selection opening at 2:30 PM. Furthermore, I personally am not going to be around the convention. I've delegated everything to Kayla. And I'm clearly not going to get enough sleep, which is bad.

Meanwhile, Back in the Studio

Jul. 3rd, 2025 10:39 pm
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[personal profile] billroper
I rambled downstairs today and got back into the studio and worked over three songs for Crosstime Bus, leaving me three to go, all of which are fingerpicked guitar, so they will require a slightly different setup. I'll see if I can get those to behave tomorrow.

One of the songs that I worked on today, "Dance by Starlight", is going to need some fixup before I'm done with it. I wrote that song back in 2005, about ten years after Gretchen and I got married, when I was an ocean away from her at the British filkcon which was very, very full of wedding vibes that weekend. I like the song a lot, which is why it's on the album list.

It is, however, being a pain in the butt, because I wrote it *before* I started using a pick again. When you're not using a pick, you can easily transition between the fingerpicked section at the beginning, the strummed section in the middle, and the fingerpicked section at the end. When you are using a pick, this is not something that can be managed at my skill level.

When I'm playing the song *now*, I have worked out that I can arpeggiate the formerly fingerpicked sections and play them with the pick. However, the timing on that is just slightly different from the timing when fingerpicking. The scratch tracks, which have some accompaniment associated with them already, were played without a pick.

Today's session made it clear to me that I cannot get the fingerpicked section to time out correctly when I'm using a pick. This means that I am going to have to record a separate guitar track for the beginning and end of the song and patch it in around the picked section in the middle. I can do this, of course.

It's just another learning experience. :)

But I really like the song, so it will be worth it.
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[personal profile] turbobeholder posting in [community profile] girlgenius_lair
«They’re doing just as much damage as we are!»

Books read, June 2025

Jul. 3rd, 2025 05:59 pm
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[personal profile] the_sheryl
Here's what I read last month:

Vanishing Treasures - Katherine Randell (non-fiction)
Mystery Most Humorous - John Betancourt, Michael Bracken & Carla Coupe, eds.(anthology)
Murder at the Serpentine Bridge - Andrea Penrose

chirps

Jul. 3rd, 2025 10:23 am
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[personal profile] calimac
Chirp. It was the smoke detector in our bedroom, waking us to inform that the battery needed to be replaced. Or so we thought. Upon inspection, it turned out the battery couldn't be replaced on this one. You had to buy a new detector. Wait for the hardware store to open for the morning, then find one of the same model, so it fit on the same brackets. Sort of. Anyway, it's up and alert now.

Boom. That, I presume, was the sound of the warehouse full of fireworks exploding after it caught on fire, a couple days ago. Although it was after hours and out in the countryside, seven people were reported missing. It may be a while before this can be put out; fireworks keep exploding. At least one local town had been relying on those fireworks for its July 4th show, which has been canceled. Be careful out there.

Smof. It means ... well, it means someone experienced in running science-fiction conventions. One such has written that the unopposed bid for the next Worldcon up is woefully unequipped to do its job. This is the sort of thing smofs often say about Worldcon bids, whether or not it turns out to be true. The smof recommends voting No Award, er I mean None of the Above, so that the Worldcon Business Meeting will decide what to do. Reading the very serious comments on this post, I decided it was better not to post my snarky comment, which would have been, "Maybe we should put the Worldcon on a boat." But I'm not sure how many readers will have been around long enough to remember what that's a reference to.
Update: Worldcon bid in question has responded with a puff piece. This does not instill confidence.

Meow. A cat walking in front of my monitor, hoping for an early breakfast, made it difficult for me to read the announcement of the impending publication of Ursula K. Le Guin's Book of Cats. This is apparently a collection of unpublished or obscure pieces, many of them whimsical, rather than e.g. an omnibus of Catwings.

Speaking of cats ... This was on xkcd a few days ago:

Manga (Anime) series info?

Jul. 3rd, 2025 01:37 pm
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[personal profile] goddess47 posting in [community profile] little_details
I'm writing a story where my main character stops his friend, a dad to a 13-ish year old boy, from purchasing some anime manga books because the main character knows the book series is too adult (sex, violence, both) for a 13 year old. The main character then recommends a different series because the story line is more appropriate for the age of the teen.

The story is the relationship between the main character and the dad, so this is a small piece of the larger story. But I know absolutely nothing about anime (or manga, obviously!) and would appreciate some recommendations of titles that would fit those categories.

Thanks!


ETA: I'm looking for currently available titles and perhaps where they are best purchased (a bookstore, a comic book store, a specialty shop, online?)


ETA2: I'm looking US-centric here.

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Joshua Kronengold

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