another essay dies aborning, but here's the gist of it

I am reading James’s essay on pragmatism, and got as far as this paragraph:

If you have his name, or the formula of incantation that binds him, you can control the spirit, genie, afrite, or whatever the power may be. Solomon knew the names of all the spirits, and having their names, he held them subject to his will. So the universe has always appeared to the natural mind as a kind of enigma, of which the key must be sought in the shape of some illuminating or power-bringing word or name.

And for some reason I thought of Treebeard, cautioning the hobbits about giving away their real names. I wondered what Treebeard’s real name was, or if he had one. And it struck me that Ent names are like stories. So if someone knew his real name, that meant that they knew his most intimate story, and that meant that either they had been there, or had somehow obtained knowledge of it—and that would mean that, yes, they had power over him. I had only half-considered it before, but there it is.

I love those moments when someone else’s worldbuilding’s complexity reveals itself to you.

Similarly I only just discovered the meaning behind the name of Meretrisa, a minor character in book 3 of marthawells’s Ile-Rien trilogy: it is Latin for whore. That's only meaningful if you know what role she plays, but it is interesting to note.

Ah well, I don't have time to finish reading the essay and will probably never come back to it. That's all the idea I really had anyway.

a day in the life

Two work tid-bits.
( Bald Faced Lies vs the Power of Jesus )

disturbing

Disturbing: I just came home from roller derby practice to find someone else's blood on my arm.

Yet more disturbing: Practice was a sit-down, off-skates, street-clothes meeting. There is absolutely no reason why anyone should be shedding blood.

I have absolutely no idea whose blood that was. If I'm bleeding, I still haven't found where.

I suppose that was a very Halloweeny moment...