Myths for hire.

The Bletchley Park team needed new codebreakers in World War 2.  So, in addition to the usual old-boy network of recruitment, they posted a crossword puzzle in the Times, offering a job to anyone who could solve the crossword within twelve minutes.  Those who responded to the ad were given an interview consisting of another crossword.

All of which reminds me of nothing so much as the Adventure of the Red-Headed League.  Holmes’ next outing: crossword puzzle vigilante!

(Though Holmes probably wouldn’t have liked crossword puzzles–too much irrelevant information.)

Last night, leaving Jon’s house after one, tipsy, we find fresh snow spread like a white down blanket, cradling and cushioning our voices.

Lots of spies and crypto and crime in my reading life right now – I’m reading The Code Book, by Simon Singh, which is a page-turner.  Meanwhile, my wife and I are catching up on Leverage, she’s watching Burn Notice in five-minute increments on her study breaks, and I’m about 60% of the way through Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  (I don’t tend to read more than one book at a time, but I’m paused on Tinker Tailor, not because it’s a slow book, but because if I don’t start finishing books and returning them to the library, the ninja doom librarians will come after me again).  All these different visions of spies, secrets, and crime are crashing in my head to odd effect.  I try to imagine what George Smiley, the competent, dangerous, but also sixty-something, overweight, cuckolded, and cautious spymaster from LeCarre’s novels, would say to Michael Westin, a super-operative who’s several shades more realistic than the graduates of the Bond & Bourne school of agentry, but still pretty fantastical.  I wonder what an actual operative would say to either.  Spies, doctors, writers, lawyers, cops, boxers, thieves, ‘hackers’ – stories provide interlocking images and models for people who participate in certain professions, that map onto the real world in odd ways.  It’s one thing to read Hagakure, another to watch The Seven Samurai, and yet another to watch Samurai Champloo.

The original quote, from the estimable Kate Beaton,about monastics and fan fiction: “You are not a very good monk.”  (A little far down, but everything on that page is golden – Ismbard Kingdom Brunel especially.)

At a gift exchange this past Christmas I received (arguably) the coolest book I’ve ever seen.  It’s called “A Quiz Compend of Mortuary Science,” and it’s a question-and-answer format textbook designed to teach everything a mortuary scientist might be asked in a class or on an exam (I presume).  No pictures, just wonderful text.  A random example:

Q. Name three functions of food in the body.

A: 1. To yield energy. 2. To provide material for growth of tissues.  3. To regulate body processes.

Q: Name the lobes of the liver.

A: Right, left, quadrate, and caudate.

Q: List the mechanical and chemical digestive processes.

A; Mechanical: Mastication, deglutition, peristaltic action of esophagus, movements of the stomach, movements of the intestine, defecation.  Chemical: Splitting of complex substances into simpler ones, enzyme hydrolysis, the formation of: a. simple sugars, b. amino acids, c. Glycerine and fatty acids.

Q: Describe the gall bladder.

On and on and on.  Sections include: Anatomy.  Microbiology.  Chemistry.  Pathology.  Embalming.  Restorative Art.  Mortuary Administration.  Mortuary Law.  If I was reading this for a class, I’d despair; having encountered it in civilian life, I expect I’ll have much of it memorized by the end of the year.

Yes, I have an epee — the first sword I’ve ever owned that I will actually use (unless something goes horribly wrong).  Its blade was made in the Ukraine, and coated with some sort of electroplating material to stave off rust, which gives the metal a faint rainbow patina.

I love it.  The loaner weapons at the club feel as if they’re made from rebar by comparison.  My blade is flexible, true, and feather-light.

Now all it needs is a name.

No analysis today, just a video (via BoingBoing) of 30 Japanese hornets fighting a nest of 30,000 honeybees, set to epic film-battle music.

I was once chased through the Chinese countryside by blood-crazed honeybees, so I’m predisposed to be on the hornets’ side, but you start to feel bad for the bees pretty quickly here.  I’m taking notes for the next time I want to write an epic battle.

Apologies for my absence – trust me when I (and my manuscripts) say, it’s been worth it.

Steph and I were given seasons 2 and 3 of Leverage for Christmas.  Leverage is one of our favorite shows – when we sit down to watch television, we’re looking for something thrilling and fun, which celebrates the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism, as the man says.  Leverage gives us that in spades.

Also, we get to watch David Foster Wallace, author of Infinite Jest, beat the crap out of people.

Confused?

This is David Foster Wallace, author of Infinite Jest, and generally amazing writer:

This is Eliot Spencer (played by Christian Kane), a thief whose job description consists of hitting people so hard they stay hit:

To repeat — Author:

Hitter:

To Steph and me, this resemblance is so eerie that we start to confuse the two.

For example, this is David Foster Wallace beating the crap out of some meth-heads who have kidnapped an innocent woman:

And this is Eliot Spencer from Leverage on Charlie Rose:

Now you all can share my confusion.

Business language is full of dead and zombie metaphors – dead metaphors being metaphors that have been used so long that all their initial descriptive power has been lost, and zombie metaphors being metaphors that died, and were resurrected as part of other metaphors.  ’Wheelhouse’ is a great example – it used to refer to the area that holds the steering wheel of a boat or ship, but then it was used to describe any kind of expertise, and over time it has become the foundation for a whole set of business-speak divorced from nautical imagery.

I’m wondering when language from tabletop RPGs, video games, and MassMOGs will invade the business lexicon – especially MassMOG language, which is all about real-time project management.  Relatively few people in business have ever seen a wheelhouse, but as the subscriber base for games like WoW and SWTOR grows, so to will the number of young knowledge workers who are at least conversant in the language of games.

Some first steps to a lexicon, beginning with :

Tank – Team member who performs vital operational tasks that involve bearing down and grinding at an objective.  Line of business.  Product development.  Design.

DPS – Team member who strikes-to-win; without Tanks they can’t even attempt many tasks, but without DPS, Tanks will grind through a lot of pain and without winning anything.  Sales is the most obvious example of this role.

Healer – Support.  Without them, Tanks and DPS spend a lot of time dying or gasping for breath.  Also serve as force multipliers.  Sales support.  Marketing.  IT.

Standing in the fire – An undesirable situation that has come about as a result of pursuing business goals.  If you’re trying to kill a dragon, you’ll sometimes find yourselves standing in the fire, and the goal is to minimize ‘time in the fire’ as much as possible.  Crunchtime is a good example.  Situations where the ROI of success has become too low, but the risks of failure have grown too high.

Training aggro – Working as primary tank on a project.

I’m sure I could think up more, but I need to apply a nose to a grindstone, and I’m afraid the nose in question belongs to me.  So – what language from games would *you* want to see in the workplace?

As often happens when I’m busy, video games have taken on a strange golden almost apocalyptic sheen: at some point in the indefinite future, most likely after the Revolution, I will have so much time on my hands that I will be able to spend 50 hours with a Playstation controller in hand, stabbing dragons with a sword.  Like most apocalypses, I don’t expect this will be anywhere near as enjoyable when it happens (if it happens) as it is in my imagination.  All those folks Raptured up to heaven will be in for an awful surprise when they look about and discover Rilke was right about angels: they’re terrifying.

Anyway, part of this gleaming future is the new Elder Scrolls game, about which I know nothing save that it’s provided the fuel for a nicely flowed rap tribute by Dan Bull.

I don’t have any real attachment to the subject matter, outside of this vaguely escahtological interest, but if you don’t see the appeal in a line like “I am the Dragonborn / Wearing a hat with badass horns,” then you may need a vacation.

I’ve recently ascended (temporarily) to the role of Editor-in-Chief at my Day Job, which means mostly that I spend a lot of time wading through business language and trying to hammer it into something like comprehensible English.  To encourage my edit-ees, I’ve been assembling a list of famous and helpful essays about good prose style.  Politics and the English Language is a good example.  One of my favorites in this genre for sheer snark and hilarity is Twain’s essay, Cooper’s Prose Style, on faults in the fiction of James Fenimore Cooper (the guy who wrote Last of the Mohicans), so, after re-reading it a couple times, I put it on the list.

Last night, though, as I edited my manuscript, at every other sentence I heard the mocking drawl of  Mark Twain’s ghost: “It is truly remarkable that Mister Gladstone’s characters can make such a deduction without any basis in logic or human reason.”   And so forth.  At least he was called me Mister Gladstone – a little respect from a restless spirit always makes one’s evening sweeter.

Vita may be brevis, but sometimes Ars feels especially Longa.