Lydia Schoch

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, poems, photographs and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Rediscovered Kitchen. My family moved around a bit while my brothers and I were growing up.  Each time we moved I wished fervently to discover some cool antiques or a long-forgotten room.  It never happened to us…but it sure did recently to Archie and Philippa Graham-Palmer!

Money Trees. How did the very first person to hammer a coin into these trees came up with the idea, I wonder?

Women in Elevators. This article is a great peek into how gender affects how men and women react to certain situations.

From All Quiet on the Western Frontier:

He stood there, shell shocked, with a thousand yard stare
In the last 48 hours he’d survived unspeakable horrors, but never left his station
Now, I needed to talk to him.

Seeking Quotes from Queer Women who Partner with Trans Women and/or Cis Men. If anyone reading this is part of this group please click on the link and participate. Everyone else – check it out as well. Some of the stories that have been shared so far are (almost) unbelievable…except that I’ve heard similar nonsense. 😉

What a gorgeous fall view!

Photo by Ximonic, Simo Räsänen

Today’s recommendation is Sex on Six Legs. Before reading it I’d never known that insects can exhibit consistant personality traits like shyness or boldness (or at least that’s our human interpretations of their behaviour. It’s difficult to know what an ant is actually thinking or feeling!)

What have you been reading?

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, comics, photographs and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

50 Unexplainable Black & White Photos. I suspect some of these photos have been doctored and/or set up but it’s still fascinating to think about how and why they came into existence. Fair warning: a few pictures are mildly NSFW.

Pandhandlers Do Not Grow Up Dreaming of Pandhandling. A fantastic review of an eye-opening blog.

Smoke In Your Eyes: Dragon’s Breath. Sometimes the truth does not set you free.

Lawns. This is one of many reasons why I love living in urban environments. Why spend so much time, money and valuable land growing a plant that we cannot eat, wear, build stuff out of or make into medicine? And It isn’t even an aesthetically pleasing crop which at least can be said about ornamental flowers and shrubs.

From How Swearing Works (emphasis mine):

All languages have swear words, but the words that are considered expletives and the social attitudes toward them change over time. In many languages, words that used to be taboo are now commonplace and other words have taken their place as obscenities. In American English, the words currently considered to be the most vulgar and offensive have existed for hundreds of years. Their designation as obscenities, however, took place largely during and after the 1800s.

I love Tina Fey. If you’re a fan of her work as well (or even if you’re not), buy or borrow Bossypants. It’s the perfect blend of sarcasm, biting social commentary and self-deprecating humour for which Fey is so well known.

What have you been reading?

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, videos, photographs and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Strictly No Elephants. There’s a short story wiggling around somewhere in this photograph.

From Should Skepticism be Divorced from Values:

Skepticism is not just about rejecting other people’s false or unwarranted beliefs, even though for most people, that’s about all that it amounts to: “I’m skeptical of your claim; I’m a skeptic and I’m right — you’re not a skeptic and you’re wrong,” whether you’re talking about ghosts or UFOs or Bigfoot or CAM or any of the myriad other claims that attract skeptics’ attention.

The definition of skepticism as merely the rejection of others’ false beliefs doesn’t go far enough for me. I think skepticism is best when it is self-applied, and when it is not just used as a weapon to bonk others in the head.

 How to Write a Love Poem. Just in case you have a burning desire to write a sappy poem for that special someone in your life. 😉

Do You Think Most People Try to Take Advantage of You? Fascinating stuff.

Do yourself a favour –  take five minutes to watch this incredible video:

The City from WTK Photography on Vimeo.

If I celebrated Christmas 100 New Scientific Discoveries would be at the top of my wish list. It explains new discoveries from a wide variety of disciplines in terms that those of us without professional or academic experience in them can understand without “dumbing down” the material.

What have you been reading?

Forgotten Heroes is a series of posts about extraordinary men and women who are (probably) not remembered by the average person.  Previous heroes include John Howard, Alvin Ratz Kaufman and Fred and Cela Sloman. 

If you know of a forgotten hero who should be included in this series let me know about him or her in the comment section or via my contact form. 

Time: November 1900

Place: British Columbia

Ghandl of the Quysun Aqyahl Llaanas and Skaay of the Quuna Quiighawaay were some of the last traditional oral storytellers of the Haida people.  Both men were exquisite poets who were keeping the oral traditions of their people alive. Both men were also handicapped. Ghandl lost his sight in what we believe was either a smallpox or measles outbreak in the 1890s. The records aren’t clear but both diseases are known to have this effect on some people.

Skaay had been active and vigorous as a young man but by 1900 was described as crippled. I wasn’t able to find out what happened or the specifics of his injuries.

War and waves of diseases like smallpox and the measles had decimated their numbers. At the time it was assumed that their culture was dying.

Enter John Reed Swanton, a 27-year-old linguist from Main.

Beginning in November of 1900 Swanton paid Ghandl, Skaay and other traditional storytellers to share their stories with him. Some epics took hours to recite from beginning to end. Had they decided not to participate we would have lost beautiful verses like these:

A woman was hoisting a pile of stones.

The cedar-lime line she was using kept slipping.

He watcher her a while

and then he went up to her.

‘Excuse me,’ he said,

‘But what are you doing?’

The woman replied,

‘They told me to hold up the mountains

of the Islands on the Boundary between Worlds

That is what I am doing.’

Or this excerpt of a poem from Skaal:

And he took one more step

and the earth and the house shuddered, they say.

And he took one more step,

and the house and the earth quivered.

And all together they cowered.

She said once again

‘Raise yourselves up!’

As she lifted her chin,

something powerful came to her,

and their heads rose like the tide.

Often heroes perform grand gestures – they save a life, fight against injustices long since swept under the rug, stir up a peaceful protest to bring about real change. But sometimes the most heroic thing to do is whatever it is you’ve been doing all along. Sometimes, in fact, there’s nothing this world needs more than exactly that.

Interested in reading more? Most of the information in this post was gleaned from A story as Sharp as a Knife : the Classical Haida Mythtellers and Their World.