Idle thoughts and links on a Sunday morning

[heliopausa]

Bother, bother, bother... it's no longer Sunday morning, and due to too-long delay, I've lost nearly all of a long post, and nothing's left but the links, essentially. I suppose at least it spares you all the idle thoughts!

There was this story which begins by being about a not-exactly plagiarism,but ends in mulling the possibility that tumblr is changing the mode of self-expression from private individual creation to a more collective, curatorial form. (The idle thoughts I had were about whether this wasn't more akin to the old commonplace book method.)

Then there was the Owl as stealth warrior and I wondered about writing some more Narnia, with a story about Peter in the North, giving the Owl Shortfeather a much more active role than just messenger. (That link talks about a wingspan of nearly six feet! attacks with razor-sharp talons!)

and there was the death of a man in the Northern Territory, who will be much missed. I'm sorry I lost those stray thoughts - in sum, a great story-teller, a sharp analyst of people and situations, a valuable doer of things, and not a scrap of malice in him.

From the same source, a tiny glimpse of more traditional indigenous story-telling, in contemporary life.

and that's it from the Lost Post! :)

Comments

[transposable_element]

Thanks for the links. It's still Sunday morning where I am. :-)

I had no idea owls got that big. Wow. Certainly in Narnia there would be lots of useful roles for Owls -- night-time surveillance, rescue operations, or sabotage, for example. I'd definitely want an Owl in my commando unit.

It's hard to know what to say about the death of someone I didn't know and had never even heard of before, but just from the article Mr Tilmouth sounds like a fascinating and amazingly resilient person.

[heliopausa]

Me either, though this is evidently the largest species of owl.
Yes, he wasn't very well-known even in australia - very well-known in the Centre, and I guess in Darwin, and the islands, but not in the big southern cities; there are lots of much better known indigenous activists - I suppose that's part of why I wanted to post about him.
Resilient - yes. :) (as shown in that great story about the meeting at the airport.)

[marmota_b]

Ah, Bubo bubo. (We've always loved that funny Latin name.) They really are huge! But I'm sort of used to them from childhood, in a book-reading, zoo-visiting, animal rescue station-visiting way, plus their Czech name actually includes the word "big"; so it never occurred to me to wonder at their size. :-) (Ravens were more fascinating, because I was more used to the smaller rooks.) But imagine how huge Narnian Eagle Owls would be if Snow Owls can carry human children! I think I need to include some in The Peridan Chronicles...

There is that interesting bit about it (her!) possibly having been reared by humans. I don't know about Netherlands; here there is a network of animal rescue stations (for wildlife) where you can bring injured and abandoned animals. I believe the usual policy is for adults to heal and let go again if possible, and keeping some of the young who would not know how to behave in the wild. Like, if you see European brown bears at a Czech chateau or in a zoo, they're there because they would have been rescued as cubs. Birds of prey often go to falconers - some rescue stations have falconing programs for the public that help them raise money and educate the public (and several are actually situated at chateaus/castles, because it's a mutually supportive arrangement). And I believe some of that training is to teach the birds to hunt; those who are good at it may be sent into the wild after all. Something like that.

[heliopausa]

The owls I know are much smaller, and their common name is very reminiscent of bubo bubo - the boobook owl. :)

But as far as Narnia goes, I don't think they would all necessariy scale up the same way - in TMN the Elephants actually shrank a little. I think the idea was for all the intelligent species to be of a size that would allow for reasonably easy social interaction. :)
(Which makes the Giants something of a puzzle. Hmmmm...)

[marmota_b]

Oh. That's true. In that case I wonder... would Bubo bubo as is be able to carry a child? :D
Giants are a puzzle overall, aren't they? I don't remember them being mentioned in TMN... or is it just the fact that I haven't properly read that book in years?

[heliopausa]

"be able to"? - possibly, if pushed, with an extremely light child! But I would think that falls into the "don't try this at home" category of possibility. :D

As for the Giants - I'm thinking of exploring something of their history and societies (no, they're not mentioned in TMN) in the Peter in the North story, with the assistance of Owls.

[marmota_b]

I asked that question mostly because all this makes me wonder how big exactly Glimfeather is!
(And while we're there, awww shucks on male Glimfeather - in Czech "owl" is default as female, so the translator just went with it. Lots of animals are default as female, in fact, so I've unwittingly grown up with a much more gender-diverse Narnia than English readers did... Aww shucks on the first joke being male. I think I ought to make a post about it, because it was one of those things that were eating at me, fandom-wise.)

[heliopausa]

Aw, shucks, too, that I made Shortfeather male in The Ivory Merchants, especially since I've found out that the female of the Bubu bubu is larger than the male.
However - cheerful point! Sallowpad is never defined in the books as male or female, so the fanficcer can go for either! (Though I've only ever read one fanfic which decided she was female.)

[marmota_b]

Ravens (and rooks) are default male in Czech (crows, jackaws, jays and magpies are all female, though). So it did not occur to me and I'm not sure I could switch my thinking that way, used as I am to a male Sallowpad with a male Czech name - as much as I would love to... Just like I have a lot of trouble thinking of Glimfeather and all the Owl Parliament as male. Aw shucks once more.
But I'll just go on throwing them in elsewhere. Sallowpad needs a partner, after all, because Ravens work that way. Asta the Dog librarian should logically be one of Methos' allies in Cair Paravel, and I think Bella the Squirrel Monkey will get to play a larger role later on, too - a Golden Age needs an artist (or preferably lots of them)!

[marmota_b]

Oops, this was meant to go on the other post. Well, it remains here.
I posted my own prompt on historyfest. I'm not sure I'll get around to filling any (a lot of them aren't my thing, anyway), but I'll be interested in seeing how some of them turn out. :-)

[heliopausa]

Yes, I was more interested in reading than in actually filling a prompt there. The introduction leaves that as an acceptable option. :) I'd only recently come across Anne of Brittany - her whole life a comment on monarchies and gender roles.