Dylan Thomas, to most people, is the man telling us to "rage, rage against the dying of the light" and to not under any circumstances go quietly into the night. All sound advice, in general (especially, I would say, after the Lovecraft entry two days ago). You may also know of his strong dipsomaniac streak, or that he was Welsh. But you may not be aware that he is also the author of a sweet little prose poem about Christmas.

You can listen to the 1952 recording (made the year before he died) here, or you can read it here (though I do not recommend it because I suspect that horrible custardy yellow background can put anyone off literature). It is well worth listening to Dylan Thomas read, though. I don't care what he reads; pretty much anything will sound like poetry; and when he reads poetry it all gets rather spectacular.

I called "A Child's Christmas in Wales" a prose poem because it has that rhythmic aspect which makes it somehow other than a short story; and where you would expect a short story to have a clearer structure, this collection of memories is much looser and more associative. There are people who insist on presenting it as a cloyingly nostalgic piece about the innocence of childhood (seeing this, apparently, as a good thing). I am not sure I agree. It contains enough funny twists and turns to undermine the nostalgia. If anything, the children are the ...

As today is the the feast of St. Nicholas (or Sinterklaas, if you are of the Dutch persuasion), I thought it only right and proper to make today's story one about Santa Claus. You may have heard all sorts of strange stories about Greek bishops from Turkey and showing up at the council of Nicea and handing out gifts to people in secret. That is one version, but not the one we are dealing with here.

Instead, I direct your attention to The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, by L. Frank Baum. (You may recognize the name as that of the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (and damn everything, I will now be humming that song for the rest of the day), which was published only two years earlier.)

This Santa Claus is a human child, abandoned by his parents, who gets an unexpectedly good start in life by being raised by a Nymph in a magical forest.

Nature peopled it in the beginning with Fairies, Knooks, Ryls and Nymphs. As long as the Forest stands it will be a home, a refuge and a playground to these sweet immortals, who revel undisturbed in its depths.

You get the idea: Baum has made up his own Fairyland. In this forest, the wood-nymph Necile gets weirdly discontented, going so far as to almost dream of going off in search of adventure. Thankfully, a baby shows up to distract her (after she has ...

I dag er det ikke mindre enn ti år siden Are postet den aller første posten på calcuttagutta.blogspot.com, og ti år må i grunnen kunne sies å være en respektabel alder for en blogg. Selv om aktiviteten har gått noe ned med årene vil jeg fortsatt si at Calcuttagutta i høy grad er en levende blogg, noe jeg håper den kan fortsette å være i mange år fremover.

Jeg finner det ikke like lett som før å slenge sammen en artikkel på kort tid i løpet av en ettermiddag, noe jeg tror det er flere grunner til. For det første har jeg allerede skrevet om mange av tingene som det er naturlig for meg å slenge sammen en kort artikkel om, og videre har jeg med årene begynt å føle at jeg burde skrive litt mer om seriøse temaer, og ikke så mye om det jeg har gjort på i dag. Når jeg ser tilbake på gamle artikler er det imidlertid ofte de som har et element av det jeg drev med på den tiden jeg synes det er morsomst å lese om igjen. For eksempel er det veldig interresant å lese om igjen det jeg skrev om fysikk og programmering for fem-seks-sju år siden. Slik sett kunne jeg kanskje like godt skrevet en dagbok, men kanskje skriver man bedre når også andre skal lese det, og forhåpentligvis har også andre glede av å lese i allefall mesteparten av det jeg skriver.

En annen ting er at nå ...

I suspect your first thought as Christmas approaches is not Lovecraftian horror, though it is not as incongruous as you might think.

There is a long tradition tying the winter solstice to dark happenings (think the Asgaardsrei, for example), and people like M. R. James have had a lot of fun scaring their friends silly over the holidays. I am generally not of this persuasion (being the scaree more often than the scarer), but it is hard to bypass H. P. Lovecraft's "The Festival" in this context of Christmas stories.

It was originally published in Weird Tales, but you can read it here (not for the faint-hearted -- in fact, if you dislike horror, you may reconsider reading this particular entry; go watch this kitten instead. There is no shame in this).

I have not, however, chosen a scary tale just for the sake of tradition. "The Festival" IS a Christmas story, after a fashion. And it is set in New England. Now, that sounds innocent enough, doesn't it?

It was the Yuletide, that men call Christmas though they know in their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than Memphis and mankind. It was the Yuletide, and I had come at last to the ancient sea town where my people had dwelt and kept festival in the elder time when festival was forbidden; where also they had commanded their sons ...

The letter arrived on the morning of the sixteenth. I was pushing a bit of breakfast into the Wooster face at the moment and, feeling fairly well-fortified with coffee and kippers, I decided to break the news to Jeeves without delay. As Shakespeare says, if you are going to do a thing, you might as well just pop right at it and get it over.

Thus begins this glorious Wodehousian Christmas story, with a daring plan and a touch of paraphrased wisdom. It was originally published in The Strand Magazine (generally more famous as the place where Sherlock Holmes was published) in December 1927 (incidentally also the year of the last Sherlock Holmes story). If you do not happen to have the December 1927 issue of The Strand on hand, you can also find the story in the collection Very Good, Jeeves (not to be confused with Right-ho, Jeeves; Carry on, Jeeves; My Man Jeeves or The Inimitable Jeeves).
Bertie Wooster's news is that rather than go to Monte Carlo for the holidays (something Jeeves has rather been looking forward to, in an understated way), they will be spending it with Lady Wickham at Skeldings. He is promptly punished by Jeeves (who fails to shield him from a telephone conversation with the dreaded Aunt Agatha) and by fate ...

I must admit, if you mention Truman Capote, Christmas is not the first thing that comes to mind for me. I think of him as a brilliant writer, a New York intellectual, an openly gay man in a society which saw that as a crime, a man of idiosyncrasies, and the author of Breakfast at Tiffany's, Other Voices, Other Rooms and In Cold Blood. Also, he was barely taller than me (which is something I always make a note of when possible).

I also think of him as Harper Lee's childhood friend, echoed in some respect in her To Kill A Mockingbird as Dill (just as he probably drew on her in the creation of Idabel in Other Voices, Other Rooms -- I would definitely recommend reading the two novels together; all the more so because they do not tell the same story, but both still manage to portray the coming of age in a world of irrational prejudice). Today's story is in fact based on memories from the same period and the same place as Harper Lee's book (the great depression and Monroeville, Alabama, respectively).

But be that as it may, Capote is a Christmas writer (more than once, in fact: there is also the later and somewhat less heartwarming "One Christmas"). "A Christmas Memory" is nostalgic, detailing the child's memory of Christmas preparation and Christmas celebration on the margins of ...

Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels might seem like a surprising leap from yesterday's entry, but you should not be fooled by 600-odd years' having passed: Christmas is still around.

The great and wonderful thing about Hogfather, however, is that it takes Christmas, shakes it, turns it upside down and twirls it around, and then places it before you sprinkled with teeth. In a good way, of course.

Pratchett writes what you might call ludic parody (from Latin ludere: to play). It is playful; not mocking, but a friendly kind of poking at familiar patterns. What makes it all so wonderfully textured is precisely the fact that it is not a parody of one pattern, but that it draws together a variety of texts in order to create something new.

Having constructed the Discworld universe, Pratchett can then in turn use it as a backdrop for a series of shakings, turning-upside-downings and sundry similar treatments of other cultural patterns. This includes narrative conventions (the Disc's characters are well aware, for example, that an unarmed man facing an army has an unfair advantage; or that a one-in-a-million chance is the best shot at success); but it also serves as a backdrop for the historical and the political (with occasionally scathing social satire).

There are 40 novels set in the Discworld universe, and they make up a motley crew, which can ...

Following Tor's excellent example from a few years back, I've decided to give you a Calcuttagutta countdown to presents and family dinners. And because it is me doing it, I am doing it with books and short stories. CHRISTMAS books and short stories. And nothing says Christmas quite like a headless green man.

"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is a 14th century poem, written by a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer (in either Edward III's or Richard II's reign, depending on who you ask). It opens on New Year's Day, but don't be fooled: it seems to me a classic midwinter tale, with the connotations of death and renewal which midwinter festivals like Christmas are all about; the middle part IS set at Christmas, and in addition the first line of the stanza below (from the opening of the poem) tells us that "this king [Arthur] lay at Camelot upon Christmas".

Þis kyng lay at Camylot vpon Krystmasse
With mony luflych lorde, ledez of þe best,
Rekenly of þe Rounde Table alle þo rich breþer,
With rych reuel oryȝt and rechles merþes.
Þer tournayed tulkes by tymez ful mony,
Justed ful jolilé þise gentyle kniȝtes,
Syþen kayred to þe court caroles to make.
For þer þe fest watz ilyche ful fiften dayes,
With alle þe mete and þe mirþe þat ...

Jeg har snakket litt med et par webdesignere i det siste, og jeg må si jeg er virkelig imponert over alt det utrolig kule man kan gjøre på en nettside nå om dagen. En av tingene som ble nevnt er at alle nettlesere nå om dagen støtter svg (scalable vector graphics). Mitt forhold til svg er at det er det formatet Inkscape lagrer ting i, og jeg har faktisk prøvd meg på manuelt redigere en svg-fil fra Inkscape en gang i tiden, men det var mildt sagt en frustrerende opplevelse. Jeg var derfor en anelse skeptisk da svg ble trukket frem som veien, lyset og livet.

Det er imidlertid viktig å være villig til å oppdatere fordommene sine en gang i blant, så jeg satte meg ned etter middag og kikket litt på hva man kan gjøre med svg og litt lettvint javascripting på en nettside. Min motivasjon for å gjøre slike ting er ofte knyttet til å presentere data på en eller annen måte, og etter litt prøving feiling greide jeg å hacke sammen et lite eksempel som lager en interaktiv graf med ca 40 linjer javascript og svg. Vi tillater naturligvis ikke hvasomhelst av script og tags i artikler på Calcuttagutta, så jeg fyrte opp et django-shell og stappet tekst ukritisk rett inn i artikkelobjektet. Av og til er den korteste veien gjennom gjørma.

(En annen ting jeg lenge har tenkt at jeg burde blogge om er at jeg planlegger å begynne å bruke ordtak som ikke gir ...

Jeg sykler som regel til og fra jobb for tiden. Dette er en tur på omtrent 15 minutter til jobb, og omtrent 20 minutter hjem, sånn litt avhengig av vær og føre, og hvor heldig jeg er med lyskryss og slikt. Til jobb er det for det meste flatt og nedover, som naturligvis betyr at det for det meste er flatt og oppover hjem fra jobb, så på vei til jobb kjører jeg nokså konsistent på 15 minutter, mens hjem kommer det mer an på hvor tøff jeg føler meg, og om jeg tar en omvei for å få litt ekstra trening, om jeg stopper på butikken, etc.

Som fysiker liker jeg godt å ha noen tall å forholde meg til, og selv om de tallene jeg har nevnt her egentlig er gode nok til å fortelle meg når jeg bør sykle hjemmefra for å være på jobb til et gitt tidspunkt er det åpenbart mulig å få tak i flere og mer nøyaktige tall. For ikke å snakke om statistikk. Greit nok at jeg brukte 15 minutter til jobb i går, men hvor tidlig må jeg starte hvis jeg vil være 95% sikker på å være på jobb til ni? Og hvilken av de mange tilnærmet like rutene til jobb er den beste?

For å undersøke dette nærmere har jeg bestemt meg for å begynne å bruke en GPS-app når jeg sykler til jobb. Deretter kan jeg eksportere dataene til gpx, og plotte dem på et kart med python ...