Thursday, July 31, 2014

Shadows of a Thousand Years

As Gene Wolfe has observed, the workings of Narrativium and the Morphogenetic Field are not limited to the usual constraints of causality:
When Stelarc dons his Laser eyes...
...and his bioengineered ears...
...and his supplementary hands, he is (all unawares) recapitulating the Perseus myth cycle; with its supplementary Fetch Quests where Perseus gallivants around to obtain the trappings of heroism -- the wingèd sandals and the Glove of Power and the Star Wand --

"You seem to be experiencing some cross-talk or bleed-through from Creatures of Light and Darkness", said tigris.

"Did you watch the Lars von Trier adaptation last night on the Riddled Channel?" Another Kiwi wondered. "Eight hours long but he captured Zelazny's aesthetic exactly."

"...Stelarc is also creating ripples in the morphogenetic field," I said, pressing on and undeterred, "which propagate backwards to trouble the dreams of 16th-century engravers. I am not sure where the shaggy trousers with the pelvic-thrusty wings come from. Perhaps they are part of Stelarc's transhumanism performance which he has not yet perfected."
 photo stelarc.gif
Meanwhile AK was calibrating the time-machine extension to the Dream Machine so as to inspect the troubled dreams of those engravers and woodcut artists. "The hero, once suitably attired and armed, is supposed to be slaying Medusa, innee?" he vouchsafed. "That does not look like a Medusa." 
"He's chasing Ann Althouse," I said; "that's good enough for government work."
-----------------------
Commentator ITTDGY argues that "close enough" is preferable to "good enough", and he has the backing of Goofle NGram:
I favour "good enough" because shut up that's why.

7 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

"Close enough for government work," he remonstrated.
~

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Good enough for blogging work.
~

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Sexy Graeae... who knew?

fish said...

Ann Althouse is a medusa designed by committee.

H. Rumbold, Master Barber said...

An ear is as good as a nose if you're doing the Tagloacozzi technique.

Yastreblyansky said...

BBBB is right about the Graeae, they're spectularly different from the ones I remember.

"Close enough" to me always refers to tuning, as in "Close enough for country music."

Captcha has been captured by an ad which any robot could easily read. All sorts of automata will be commenting here soon.

Smut Clyde said...

Them is Sea-Nymphs who guard the sandals and such as. Burne-Jones was following a version where Perseus consulted the Graiae first to get directions to the Nymphs.