Not that I want to end up living on Long Island but not a bad place if I did.

Northport, NY [Daniel Gale]

Labels: northport

...scariest animal ever!

It's time to admit it. [Rifftrax]

Labels: "coconut crab"

"We’re logical people — we’re library people..."

The Librarians Call It an Anomaly (It Wasn’t Rattling Chains) [NYTimes.com]

Labels: ghosts, libraries

State and federal environmental officials approved the use of the Redbirds and other cars for artificial reefs...

Growing Pains for a Deep-Sea Home Built of Subway Cars [NYTimes.com]

Labels: reefs, subway

Impeccable 1920s Manor House [BerkshirePropertyAgents.com]

Labels: house porn, procrastination

The title to this post is a quote given to me by University of Minnesota's Professor Anatoly Liberman. Professor Roberta Frank at Yale also affirmed that there is a dearth of available opportunities for the budding historical linguist. Despite the dour outlook I still sometimes fantasize about a life of academia especially when I read the interests of the two following professors (Professor Liberman being one) whose areas of study mirror my own interests:

Professor Eric Stanley at Pembroke College, Oxford -

Interests: History of the English Language from Old English onwards; history of the study of Germanic philology and especially English philology, from the beginning of the study of Anglo-Saxon onwards

Professor Anatoly Liberman at the University of Minnesota -

Professor Liberman's areas of teaching and research include the languages and literature of the Middle Ages. In linguistics, he is mainly interested in historical phonology and the origin of words and is working on a new etymological dictionary of English. In literature, his publications deal with Germanic poetry and Scandinavian myths. He teaches courses on the history of German, Old Icelandic, Gothic, Scandinavian mythology, and German folklore.

In some parallel universe I'm sitting in a library studying Norn right now.

Graduate Studies in Linguistics, Philology & Phonetics [University of Oxford]
Anatoly Liberman [University of Minnesota: GSD]

Labels: dashed dreams, historical linguists, parallel universe, philology

I've been thinking a lot about "hauntology" lately. To use Derrida's definition at the end of history the present becomes oriented towards ideas of the past, creating a sort of murky reflection of what we imagine "once was." There's a natural inclination towards things "rustic, bizarre or 'old-timey'."

...in his Specters of Marx during which he reflects on the persistance of the concept of (utopian) revolution despite its apparent eradication from the scene of politics and history (the book is 'work of mourning' published in the early 90s after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the inaugeration of the 'end of history'). As such the concept of social and political revolution takes on a ghostly aspect - present and not present, eluding the categorical definition of western metaphysics, apparently erased yet still palpable in traces and echoes and uncanny visitations.

In this sense I came to realize that many of my favorite video games growing up shared hauntological qualities by sheer fact of relying on a mythological past while existing in the medium of 2-d electronic entertainment. These games, such as King's Quest IV, Dragon Warrior III & IV, A Link to the Past, Final Fantasy III & IV, ChronoTrigger and Secret of Mana are deeply dependent, both visually and by way of content, upon northern European and (it seems to a much lesser extent) Asian folklore. And this folklore was now being re-communicated via a full-on video game where one could visually immerse themselves in this world completely. Thus, these forgotten worlds that never truly existed "return" to life via the corrupted collective memory of late 20th-century video game designers.*

*I should note that it's doubtful any of these games would exist if it weren't for the popular works of Tolkien and his desire to "recreate" the Anglo-Saxon mythology he imagined was lost due to the Norman invasion.

What is hauntology? [Jahsonic]
Hauntology [Wikipedia]

Labels: A Link to the Past, Anglo-Saxon, ChronoTrigger, Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, hauntology, Secret of Mana, Tolkien, video games

Mar 28 [Garfield Minus Garfield]

Labels: birthday, garfield