Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years. History and culture written in thread.

Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times by Elizabeth Wayland Barber
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This really helped consolidate my knowledge of the development of human civilization. Its use of language along with archeological evidence reinforces the research I've pursued on language origins.

As a world builder of science fiction and fantasy, Barber's research fills in the rest of the story that stone & metallic artifacts do not disclose. Moreover, the author gets hands on and reconstructs the crafts of the past. Altogether, it is a brilliant endeavor.

View all my reviews

Comments

Nwahulwana

Wazimbo's "Nwahulwana" Found this on a German site: Warum wanderst du von Bar zu Bar? (“Why do you wander from bar to bar?”) So, the first time I heard this I thought I recognized some Portuguese, but it’s illusory; the language is actually Ronga. I suppose it was just the echoes of Brazilian music. I found, though, a translation into Portuguese, which I will translate to English, but here’s the thing: this transcription of the words isn’t correct. Also, I’m almost certain I hear “vôce” which means “you” in the lyrics. First, “nwahulwana” itself is a soft expression for prostitute, hence “night bird” is the poetic meaning. I thought it was a love song. My wife thought it was a prayer (probably because of the way Wazimbo lifts his eyes to the sky when he sings “Maria”). So, it is something like this, but there are mistakes, because the lines don’t match up. Also, I wonder if he is singing “Nwahulwana” when the song starts - . It’s hard to know since I don’t

My review of The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood My rating: 5 of 5 stars Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is brilliant literary science fiction. I will discuss the literary aspects of it in a moment, but first it’s important to place it squarely in the domain of science fiction. First, under Darko Suvin's definition of sci fi, the question is whether there is cognitive strangeness and nova. They are very apparent, specifically the new assignment of gender roles, along with the reason they exist. The nova introduced are ecological disasters, an enormous rise in failure to Gileadeans to sexually reproduce, and the imposition of a fundamentalist government that divides women by their function, entirely controlling them. We know (again from the lecture) that Atwood was responding to societal changes, such as the rise of the Moral Majority, which lends a spooky plausibility to the strangeness, making it not so strange and that much scarier. Delany's definition is wider. He as

Script Abbreviations in Screen Writing

SCRIPT ABBREVIATIONS ELS extreme long shot MLS medium long shot LS long shot MS medium shot MCU medium close-up CU close-up ECU extreme close-up OS over-the-shoulder shot 2-S or 3-S two-shot or three-shot POV point of view shot ZI or ZO zoom in or zoom out INT interior EXT exterior SOT or SOF sound on tape or sound on film BG background SFX or F/X special effects (can be either sound or visual) VO voice-over OSV off-screen voice DIS dissolve MIC microphone VTR videotape Q cue (as in cue talent) ANNCR announcer SUPER superimposition

A Man Glides Through

Search This Blog