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narcasseA Guide to Ancient Egyptian London - The Eloquent Peasant
Which makes me wonder if I really should take a trip to Howard Carter’s grave, though once I do get round to graveyard visiting it’s probably Highgate Cemetery that I should head to first, if only because I’ve actually read Sean Manchester’s The Highgate Vampireand all I got was a lousy recommendation to listen to Metamorphosen. If I found that book again for a stupidly cheap price I’d be tempted to pick up a copy simply to take a look at the whole modern myth construction business though my other alternative might simply be to pick up a copy of Bill Ellis’ Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions and the Media. And perhaps Linda Dégh’s Legend and Belief: Dialects of a Folklore Genre might be useful for that too.
It’s quite an interesting point really that all it takes is for an individual to decide to play a role publicly and then gain media attention for the entire phenomenon to grown into mass public hysteria. The Highgate Vampire tale really does draw on the classic sort of elements associated with a horror-adventure tale after all. The obvious accusations being that the vampire hunter himself is simply playacting the Van Helsing-esque role from various fiction, though from what I recall from Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which I’ve not yet finished, that role seems to combine both the hero’s role and Daedalus’. Because drawing on scant memories of a book I read something like fourteen years ago; there wasn’t a separate hero figure alongside the mentor. Which might at least make an argument for multi-classing if only the roles of student and mentor could be hybridised. But they can’t because it’s not a matter of a physical skills match but rather that the student has something to learn from the mentor so you can’t exactly combine both.
Still, it might well make an interesting study of how individuals sometimes attempt to push themselves into certain roles or characteristics. Though if I’m looking at it from that angle, it’s something I’d expect to see more often with younger teens because as you grow older you become more comfortable in your own skin with your own traits and skills and learn to separate admiration for said traits from a desire to possess them yourself. Sherlock Holmes’ ability to look at a person and identify the tiniest detail of their character from the way they move or wear their clothes is certainly a vaunted fictional trait but probably isn’t one that I’d attempt to cultivate myself. I’m quite content to be able to tell which hand someone writes with and even then only for trivia value and at close proximity.
And in the case of characters such as Abraham van Helsing, while his vast store of knowledge would be enviable; I’ve never had any desire to become a physician which seems to be the main part of his job anyway and with his knowledge of the esoteric also comes the responsibility of dealing with the undead who could end up killing him at any time. But then it’s likely that risk factor that draws at least a good portion of van Helsing fans, with the belief being that with his knowledge and expertise he’s not likely to be killed any time soon. Thus the attraction is in the supernatural adventure entirely beyond everyday means and of course for an adventure that defies the given norm; so to does the hero. His weakness is that he’s mortal but girded with his props and knowledge, the risk factor becomes minimal so the reader can go along for a thrilling ride where the hero risks death at every turn but isn’t really likely to die.
All of which is well and good but when that line between enjoying a piece of fiction and wanting to be a part of it breaks down then the entire process seems to come full circle with a real person acting out the part of a fictional archetype, thus reinforcing that archetype’s caricatured traits and possibly even launching those selected traits into more fiction. Thus life begins to imitate art that was originally imitating life in iterations. Which is the furthest thing from avant-garde that I can think of and is perhaps really rather painfully kitsch.
Egyptological theories magically become fact in news stories - The Eloquent Peasant
I have less to say about this than I might usually because still only a month on I suspect that I’m still quite drained as far as it comes to debating media representation of anything. Suffice to say; nobody wants to hear that something has been discovered and it might or might not be a great archaeological find thus it sells more papers to suggest that sensational matters are known for certain. Sensation sells; accuracy, not so much.
Why the aliens did NOT build the pyramids - The Eloquent Peasant
This sort of theory irritates me from the outset or rather it’s the theory that aliens must have been responsible for every great human achievement over time that does it. What it really amounts to in this case is; just because you know jack about engineering doesn’t mean that everyone else is in a similar situation. The ancient Egyptians evidently weren’t at any rate.
More than this specific case though, what’s worrying is the seemingly ready belief that any great historical work must be attributed to forces beyond humanity. Why? What is it about the pyramids that needs the negation of human effort and industry to justify their existence? After all, I like Stargate: SG-1 as much as the next man but it’s never occurred to me to lend any credence to the theory that some aliens from somewhere decided to take a trip to earth and build some pharaohs a couple of tombs in trade for… ibises, possibly. Maybe they traded the exact same weight of stones used for the weight of ibises the Egyptians would have to give them and thus with their precious cargo of small gods set off into the stars to re-people their many worlds with the sacred ibises that had died out in their lands. And one day when they make the return journey with an dozen of so ibises onboard their intergalactic ships there’ll be trouble because the space ibises won’t be able to communicate so well with the Arabic-speaking ones currently populating the region.
Which may sound like a fantastical theory and not at all a serious one but since it holds as much water as any of the other theories floating about, why not? Because put in ludicrous terms and with the studious application of Occam’s Razor why does human invention need to be explained away at all? It’s what humanity does best anyway; die or adapt. And considering that those that didn’t die; adapted and expanded their knowledge, suddenly building a pyramid doesn’t seem like such a big deal at all. Given invention, manpower and the will to do so there’s probably very little that can’t be accomplished. We may not be able to fly under our own power but getting on a plane is more than commonplace in this day and age, and there’s certainly no alien indulgence involved when you buy your ticket.
Because this looks like it should be quite interesting to keep an eye on:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
eloquentpeasant
Which makes me wonder if I really should take a trip to Howard Carter’s grave, though once I do get round to graveyard visiting it’s probably Highgate Cemetery that I should head to first, if only because I’ve actually read Sean Manchester’s The Highgate Vampire
It’s quite an interesting point really that all it takes is for an individual to decide to play a role publicly and then gain media attention for the entire phenomenon to grown into mass public hysteria. The Highgate Vampire tale really does draw on the classic sort of elements associated with a horror-adventure tale after all. The obvious accusations being that the vampire hunter himself is simply playacting the Van Helsing-esque role from various fiction, though from what I recall from Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which I’ve not yet finished, that role seems to combine both the hero’s role and Daedalus’. Because drawing on scant memories of a book I read something like fourteen years ago; there wasn’t a separate hero figure alongside the mentor. Which might at least make an argument for multi-classing if only the roles of student and mentor could be hybridised. But they can’t because it’s not a matter of a physical skills match but rather that the student has something to learn from the mentor so you can’t exactly combine both.
Still, it might well make an interesting study of how individuals sometimes attempt to push themselves into certain roles or characteristics. Though if I’m looking at it from that angle, it’s something I’d expect to see more often with younger teens because as you grow older you become more comfortable in your own skin with your own traits and skills and learn to separate admiration for said traits from a desire to possess them yourself. Sherlock Holmes’ ability to look at a person and identify the tiniest detail of their character from the way they move or wear their clothes is certainly a vaunted fictional trait but probably isn’t one that I’d attempt to cultivate myself. I’m quite content to be able to tell which hand someone writes with and even then only for trivia value and at close proximity.
And in the case of characters such as Abraham van Helsing, while his vast store of knowledge would be enviable; I’ve never had any desire to become a physician which seems to be the main part of his job anyway and with his knowledge of the esoteric also comes the responsibility of dealing with the undead who could end up killing him at any time. But then it’s likely that risk factor that draws at least a good portion of van Helsing fans, with the belief being that with his knowledge and expertise he’s not likely to be killed any time soon. Thus the attraction is in the supernatural adventure entirely beyond everyday means and of course for an adventure that defies the given norm; so to does the hero. His weakness is that he’s mortal but girded with his props and knowledge, the risk factor becomes minimal so the reader can go along for a thrilling ride where the hero risks death at every turn but isn’t really likely to die.
All of which is well and good but when that line between enjoying a piece of fiction and wanting to be a part of it breaks down then the entire process seems to come full circle with a real person acting out the part of a fictional archetype, thus reinforcing that archetype’s caricatured traits and possibly even launching those selected traits into more fiction. Thus life begins to imitate art that was originally imitating life in iterations. Which is the furthest thing from avant-garde that I can think of and is perhaps really rather painfully kitsch.
Egyptological theories magically become fact in news stories - The Eloquent Peasant
I have less to say about this than I might usually because still only a month on I suspect that I’m still quite drained as far as it comes to debating media representation of anything. Suffice to say; nobody wants to hear that something has been discovered and it might or might not be a great archaeological find thus it sells more papers to suggest that sensational matters are known for certain. Sensation sells; accuracy, not so much.
Why the aliens did NOT build the pyramids - The Eloquent Peasant
This sort of theory irritates me from the outset or rather it’s the theory that aliens must have been responsible for every great human achievement over time that does it. What it really amounts to in this case is; just because you know jack about engineering doesn’t mean that everyone else is in a similar situation. The ancient Egyptians evidently weren’t at any rate.
More than this specific case though, what’s worrying is the seemingly ready belief that any great historical work must be attributed to forces beyond humanity. Why? What is it about the pyramids that needs the negation of human effort and industry to justify their existence? After all, I like Stargate: SG-1 as much as the next man but it’s never occurred to me to lend any credence to the theory that some aliens from somewhere decided to take a trip to earth and build some pharaohs a couple of tombs in trade for… ibises, possibly. Maybe they traded the exact same weight of stones used for the weight of ibises the Egyptians would have to give them and thus with their precious cargo of small gods set off into the stars to re-people their many worlds with the sacred ibises that had died out in their lands. And one day when they make the return journey with an dozen of so ibises onboard their intergalactic ships there’ll be trouble because the space ibises won’t be able to communicate so well with the Arabic-speaking ones currently populating the region.
Which may sound like a fantastical theory and not at all a serious one but since it holds as much water as any of the other theories floating about, why not? Because put in ludicrous terms and with the studious application of Occam’s Razor why does human invention need to be explained away at all? It’s what humanity does best anyway; die or adapt. And considering that those that didn’t die; adapted and expanded their knowledge, suddenly building a pyramid doesn’t seem like such a big deal at all. Given invention, manpower and the will to do so there’s probably very little that can’t be accomplished. We may not be able to fly under our own power but getting on a plane is more than commonplace in this day and age, and there’s certainly no alien indulgence involved when you buy your ticket.
Because this looks like it should be quite interesting to keep an eye on:
eloquentpeasant