(no subject)

1. Jupiter Came Like a Wrecking Ball and Paved the Way for Earth

2. You can now download over 200 Art Books from the Guggenheim for Free

3. Department of Defense Isn't Admitting that Aliens Exist but They Apparently Don't Mind that You Check Out Their Sweet Rides

Personally I agree with Mark Hamil on Twitter, it looks like a Tie Fighter or an old Atari version of taking out Tie Fighters.

Also this information was already released, the fact that it's official...is kind of irrelevant at the moment. But good try Federal Government in attempting to distract the news media from the Coronavirus.

4. The Rise of Valkaries - why were the heroes who chose a warriors fate female?

5. Debunking Campbell and Jung's The Hero's Journey or Hero of a Thousand Faces

* Eight Reasons Why the Heroes Journey Sucks

* Why I Seldom Teach The Hero's Journey

* Is the Monomyth a Myth

( excerpt )

* Trouble in Mythland - Campbell and Moyers

I actually agree with all of the above. I remember getting really annoyed that whenever I looked into how to write a synopsis of a book that I was working on - I'd get an outline of the heroes journey from some third rate English Lit Professor amateur mythologist - as if my plot synopsis had to automatically fall within that frame work and if it didn't there was something wrong. (It never did. Not all stories fall within that story-framework. The only ones that do are rather simplistic stories. The more interesting and complex tales did not.)

Also, a bit of honesty here? I couldn't get through Campbell's books. I tried, but I disagreed with a lot of his analysis and found a lot of it to be generalization - not helped by the fact that various folks on the Buffy Boards, who were of scholary persuasion and from other countries, hated him with a blind passion. I bought all of them while I was analyzing Buffy in the 90s, and recalled why I didn't use them at all in my undergrad minor - Epic Myth and Folklore. The reason was simple, it wasn't supported by actual mythologists, anthropologists and folklorists.

But I tried. Then I think I got rid of all of the books. Can't remember.


6. Umbert Eco's Antilibrary - why unread books are more valuable to our lives than read ones?

Reassuring if you are like me and have published a largely unread book.

( excerpt )

7. Okay, I keep ignoring it, but it keeps appearing on my feed and I just can't avoid any longer... Inside the Diamond Princess Cruise Ship Nightmare Voyage - does validate my reasons for not taking cruises.

I have a feeling that cruises may be a thing of the past? And travel may become either ridiculously expensive or very cheap.

( Excerpt )

8. My new discovery...Fiona Apple's new album and this song in particular..

Relay