æther, aether, ether

1398, from L. æther “the upper pure, bright air,” from Gk. aither “upper air,” from aithein “to burn, shine,” from I.E. base *aidh- “to burn” (cf. Skt. inddhe “burst into flames,” O.Ir. aed “fire,” L. aedes, see edify).

In ancient cosmology, the element that filled all space beyond the sphere of the moon, constituting the substance of the stars and planets. Conceived of as a purer form of fire or air, or as a fifth element.

From 17c.-19c., it was the scientific word for an assumed “frame of reference” for forces in the universe, perhaps without material properties. The concept was shaken by the Michelson-Morley experiment (1887) and discarded after the Theory of Relativity won acceptance, but before it went it gave rise to the colloquial use of ether for “the radio” (1899).

[online etymology dictionary]

omg.

Except really I posted every day (basically). Some of the posts were what I would consider cheating, especially recently. But then school is more important? That is what they tell me.

So thirty days, thirty four posts, and nearly ten thousand words later I do seem to be able to post everyday. The results are not horrible, though the quality sure does vary. If I think about the posts a day or two in advance they are much better than those which mostly consist of a reason why I couldn’t post.

Also I still have eleven posts remaining on my list of topics-I-should-mention, which means posting volume in December should remain high. Especially since I plan/hope to have more time on my hands.

Either way, after this week and a general lack of sleep, I am now off to relax a little before the next one begins. Enjoy December it will be cold outside and in your hearts.

Dossier came out today and we had our release party (which was meant to be a pre-release party) / open-mic reading with the Gladys Schmitt Creative Writing Center people who I still at some point should become better friends with (probably).

Immediately after which we had our pre-elections for The Tartan, where we just all talk about our positions and things. And I am not running, which sounds like a good idea. Now off to go finish a paper before I sleep, which needs to get done and needs to be good.

(p.s. one more day)

Four years running now I have attempted or pretended to attempt the creation of a (terrible) novel in the month of November. You might ask what my problem is, why keep doing this (or pretending to) if you know it isn’t going to happen? And I would answer, it could happen, but I would (completely) hate the results.

Most of my fiction (and we aren’t talking about all that much work here) vegetates for months as an idea, occasionally with sporadic notes, more likely just reoccurring thoughts that I can’t get rid. This is how my fiction writes itself, randomly and over long periods of time.

So November 1st rolls around and I realize that I have to start writing and if lucky I have a few fragments of characters, concepts, cataclysms, but more likely nothing. And so I will start writing stream of consciousness, mostly about how much I hate writing stream of consciousness; sometimes about how I shouldn’t be writing novels in November.

A few weeks ago Mary asked me if I was doing NaNoWriMo and I said resolutely, ‘no,’ that always goes too poorly for me. Then I got an email from D saying that they were all getting together for a write-in… and of course I attended. Because what else do I have to do on a Saturday evening than pretend I am writing a novel. And so while they are now counting thousands of words I have fifteen pages of a notebook filled with some random thoughts, fragments of stories, and me writing about how much of a pain writing a novel without planning is.

Am I pretending to write a novel this month, of course I am! The good thing is I am for now writing more, but certainly not fifty thousand words more. If I were to finish it, I would hate myself more than if I did not–what I am really hoping for is a few usable paragraphs that will later grow short stories to cradle them into prose.

As it is November and I am full of birthday-just-passed-depression, I have decided to force emotional instability into creative laser beams. To this end I am announcing dangerously early in the month that I am participating in NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). This illegitimate cousin of NaNoWriMo (more below) requires that I post to my blog (with no length requirement!) each day in November.

So the bear says I must post and post I will. Now in the spirit of one of my favorite blogs absidea I will publicly declare I am doing this and give you some of the highlights you have to look forward to:

• November 4: My Broken Camera
• November 6: National Novel Writing Month
• November 8: One Time I Listened To Music
• November 11: The Infamous Wedding Post
• November 15: See Attached Figure
• November 23: I Have A Portfolio
• November 30: The Oh My God I Failed Post

Now go and I suppose, return daily.

I hated Half Blood Prince. Harry became a perfect angel and I can’t deal with the role reversal that occurred between Harry & Dumbledore. Even with the release of Hallows there are plot holes. But worse, and I did not write this in my Hallows post, but I have told a number of people that she lost at least a star or her two for her messy epilogue.

And by messy epilogue I mean, she neglected in writing her seven volume fantasy opus to finish. She created a marvelous world and a cast of interesting characters; and most importantly she created a media frenzy. Unfortunately, the media is obviously more important to her than the literature.

And by messy epilogue I mean, she forgot that her duty as an author is to tell a story in her novel. Not write a novel, and then later give out the juicy details. Not write a novel, and specifically mention characters who have never existed in just the last five pages to elicit future questions that she can answer in interviews. And while people may have said I was overreacting I think we can now put that to rest and say that JK is pretty clearly a media-whore.

This weekend JK Rowling outed Dumbledore in a question and answer session. And there is even more back story than we knew, he fell in love with Grindelwald. But none of this is in the story. And while I am not against Dumbledore being in love with Grindelwald I don’t believe the books deal with such issues of sexuality and reading into them for that goes far beyond the text we have been given.

As Ross Douthat of The Atlantic Monthly said:

It seems like a case of J.K. Rowling trying to retroactively bestow a level of adult complexity on her characters that they don’t possess on the printed page. A writer confident in her powers wouldn’t feel the need to announce details like this after the fact.

It is all part of the same problem, the books are not complete, she wants more attention, she wants to continue giving interviews and keep fans excited. There are over 700 news articles today about Dumbledore’s sexuality. There are forthcoming plans (of hers) to write an encyclopedia of Harry-Potter-relevant-facts, but even that will never be a complete account of each new detail she comes up with.

And by messy epilogue, I mean this seals the fate of the books; if she keeps talking more of the story will exist from her mouth than from her pen. It is likely a failing of mine that I want the story to be in the book not told to me later by the Times, I want the literature to be a piece of artwork created by the author, not a device to support their growing ego.

Note: I don’t hate Dumbledore for being gay. Gay wizards are cool. I am all for gay wizard buttsex I just would prefer if the porn would have been in like chapter five, not just in the space between JK’s ears

As part of my larger attempts to have all of my digitality collected in one place, I will at some point soon begin re-collecting articles I wrote for Reporter and The Tartan here on the site. But until then, although I do post my tartan article as imports to facebook – I thought I would shortly mention that they exist here.

I would also like to say that this is the 35th anniversary of the death of Gladys Schmitt, the founder of the Creative Writing department at Carnegie Mellon and one of Pittsburgh’s most famous novelists.

For more about Gladys, who the internet has nearly left behind, I recommend this tartan article (which I did write – now you see the triple posting). She really has a pretty interesting story, and I am now quite looking forward to reading her novels (starting with The Godforgotten ).

Also, I was appointed to The Tartan editorial board last month so apart from likely seeing more articles out of me this semester, I am also now contributing to the board editorials. So keep reading The Tartan.