Month: April 2018

Caveat: Makaska

Banalities & Journaling / Geofiction

[This is a cross-post from my other blog.]

Work has been quite rough, lately. So I haven’t done much of anything geofictional.

However, isleño recently took AR120 “live” in OGF. AR120 is meant to be a kind of OGF version of the US. And I had long planned to make a state in this country. I gave up the vast majority of my territory in Mahhal (returning it to the unused country pool as AN160e) and exchanged it for a smallish “Great Lakes” state. This state will be Makaska.

Makaska is roughly modeled on Minnesota, and other upper midwest locations (Wisconsin, Michigan, Dakotas). It has a large, isthmic metropolis, called Ohunkagan – this is real-world Dakota language, which I studied once, long ago. Many of the place-names in Makaska will be from Dakota, including the actual state’s name.

I have actually done a lot of work on Makaska. But its shape was vague because I wasn’t sure which location I would get in OGF to implement it. So it was kind of schematic, with all these fragments of contour sections, hydrology, counties, etc.

Now I’ve begun the work of adapting these schemata to its actual location. I have more than 10 different JOSM layers, and I go back and forth, adjusting a river, rearranging some towns, etc. I used JOSM’s opendata plugin to upload about 300 placenames directly from a spreadsheet where I’d been working on them. So that’s a start.

Here’s a screenshot of the work-in-progress.

picture

Music to map by: Niloo, “Ola Ola.”

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: a crust of truth

Not My Poetry

Cassandra

The mad girl with the staring eyes and long white fingers
Hooked in the stones of the wall,
The storm-wrack hair and screeching mouth: does it matter, Cassandra,
Whether the people believe
Your bitter fountain? Truly men hate the truth, they'd liefer
Meet a tiger on the road.
Therefore the poets honey their truth with lying; but religion—
Vendors and political men
Pour from the barrel, new lies on the old, and are praised for kindly
Wisdom. Poor bitch be wise.
No: you'll still mumble in a corner a crust of truth, to men
And gods disgusting—you and I, Cassandra.

– Robinson Jeffers (American poet, 1887-1962)

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: break and burn and end

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Not My Poetry

Well I guess I'm having a hard week. No further comment.

What I'm listening to right now.

Taylor Swift, "Begin Again." She's really quite a talented lyricist, in my opinion. Her language is both contemporarily authentic yet still meets a lot of the traditional criteria of poetic language.

Lyrics.

Took a deep breath in the mirror
He didn't like it when I wore high heels
But I do

Turn the lock and put my headphones on
He always said he didn't get this song
but I do, I do

Walked in expecting you'd be late
But you got here early and you stand and wave
I walk to you

You pull my chair out and help me in
And you don't know how nice that is
But I do

And you throw your head back laughing
Like a little kid
I think it's strange that you think I'm funny cause
He never did
I've been spending the last 8 months
Thinking all love ever does Is break and burn and end
But on a Wednesday in a cafe
I watched it begin again

You said you never met one girl who
Had as many James Taylor records as you
But I do

We tell stories and you don't know why
I'm coming off a little shy
But I do

And you throw your head back laughing
Like a little kid
I think it's strange that you think I'm funny cause
He never did

I've been spending the last 8 months
Thinking all love ever does Is break and burn and end
But on a Wednesday in a cafe
I watched it begin again

And we walked down the block, to my car
And I almost brought him up
But you start to talk about the movies
That your family watches every single Christmas
And I want to talk about that
And for the first time
What's past is past

And you throw your head back laughing
Like a little kid
I think it's strange that you think I'm funny cause
He never did
I've been spending the last 8 months
Thinking all love ever does Is break and burn and end
But on a Wednesday in a cafe
I watched it begin again

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: todavía en sueños …

Banalities & Journaling

Thirty-two years ago, around this time of year, I started work at the Casa de los Amigos, AC, in Mexico City – that was the Quaker guesthouse and social services agency there.

I would have to say that that decision, which I made somewhat on a whim in the moment, was possibly one of the most transformative decisions I made in my entire life. It changed my "short sojourn" in Mexico into a long-term proposition, which in turn set in motion the wheels that led to my mastery of Spanish, which of course influenced my continued university career, including graduate school, such as it was.

And 32 years later, a long-term resident of South Korea, I still dream in Spanish rather than in Korean – at least when my dreams depart the English-language sphere.

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: Now I’m living in Korea Town

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Not My Poetry

I don't have much to say. I'm going through a rough spot, in terms of lack of creativity and overall poor affect. I'll just plug along with work, which is busy enough.

Meanwhile, what I'm listening to right now.

Neko Case, "In California." The video, incidentally, was directed by a Korean director. There seem to be a lot of those operating in L.A.

Lyrics.

In California I dream of snow
And all the places we used to go
With the night falling down
With the night falling down
Now I'm living in Korea Town
Waking to the sound of car alarms

I remember your face when I showed you the ticket
Said you were happy for me, your heart wasn't in it
Just a phone call away
Now there's nothing to say
As the days roll by, disconnected

In the land where the sun is always shining
I'm crying alone, palm trees they laugh at me
Another fool playing songs that don't matter
For people who chatter endlessly

Another suicide on the 405
The Black Dahlia she smiles and smiles
It's the same old town that bled her dry
One more starlet one more time
Bound to make it do or die
Talk a walk to Bonnie Brae
Try to wash these dreams away
They try to tell me L.A is beautiful when it rains

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: maybe just stroll in the spring drizzle

Banalities & Journaling / Databases, Smartphones & Computers

I suppose I always have a bit of doldrums around the equinox.

This past weekend was singularly frustrating. I was trying do computer things, with my little server. Trying to port an application I was playing with to a different database. And I just failed to figure it out. I guess I'm doing this computer stuff partly to challenge myself, because I've grown frustrated with my other "hobbies," such as they are (e.g. learning Korean, the geofiction thing, writing). So then I feel frustrated with this, too. So I have to just back off and let myself be "unproductive" I guess.

I'll go out and stroll in the spring drizzle.

[daily log: walking, 7.5km]

Caveat: 자는 범 코침 주기

한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

I ran across this aphorism in my book of aphorisms.

자는 범 코침 주기
ja.neun beom ko.chim ju.gi
sleep-PRESPART tiger nose-needle give-GER
[It’s like] giving a poke at the nose of a sleeping tiger.

My book says this is similar to “Let sleeping dogs lie.” One shouldn’t provoke those more powerful. I’m not sure these are exactly the same, but good enough.
[daily log: walking, 1km]

Caveat: ensnarement

Buddhism & Zen / Not My Poetry

To Be a Good Buddhist Is Ensnarement

The Zen priest says I am everything I am not.
In order to stop resisting, I must not attempt to stop resisting.
I must believe there is no need to believe in thoughts.
Oblivious to appetites that appear to be exits, and also entrances.
What is there to hoard when the worldly realm has no permanent vacancies?
Ten years I’ve taken to this mind fasting.
My shadow these days is bare.
It drives a stranger, a good fool.
Nothing can surprise.
Clarity is just questioning having eaten its fill.

– Jenny Xie (American poet, b?)

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: the patient daemon behind the screen of sea-rock and sky

Not My Poetry

The Bed By The Window

I chose the bed downstairs by the sea-window for a good death-bed
When we built the house, it is ready waiting,
Unused unless by some guest in a twelvemonth, who hardly suspects
Its latter purpose. I often regard it,
With neither dislike nor desire; rather with both, so equalled
That they kill each other and a crystalline interest
Remains alone. We are safe to finish what we have to finish;
And then it will sound rather like music
When the patient daemon behind the screen of sea-rock and sky
Thumps with his staff, and calls thrice: 'Come, Jeffers.'

– Robinson Jeffers (American poet, 1887-1962)

[daily log, walking, 7.5km]

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