tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post7184291496418632333..comments2024-03-26T01:10:13.720+00:00Comments on Teach Me Tonight: SlownessE. M. Selingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00426524354823232002noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-8950913412623356432011-05-04T13:26:11.120+01:002011-05-04T13:26:11.120+01:00Thank you all for these comments and ideas -- all ...Thank you all for these comments and ideas -- all very helpful. I am still working through these ideas.Jonathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09577417918428286900noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-41742480045462582932011-05-03T21:36:01.610+01:002011-05-03T21:36:01.610+01:00There is renewed interest in Britain in planting b...There is renewed interest in Britain in planting black walnut trees, which will only benefit future generations. It's mostly with an eye to increasing the value of the land, but still, better than a quick profit mentality.<br /><br />On reading, I know some romance readers who speed read,and that's always felt peculiar to me. There are many times that I wish a could speed read non-fiction, because all I want from that particular book is the meat and I'm having to dig the "good bits" out of a pile of words that add nothing. (That doesn't mean that all non-fiction is like that, of course.)<br /><br />But for me the correct reading time of good fiction is part of the magic. Pacing is the rhythm that elevates a novel from good to great. Like many readers I will slow down when I'm reading a really good book to make it last.<br /><br />I don't think this has anything to do with physical virginity, however. The novel could just as well be about a rake and a whore if the author is making that exploration work for me. It could easily be about two widowers. <br /><br />A romance novel is always about the exploration and vulnerability of new intimacy, or a newly discovered intimacy after alienation. In my most recent romance, the heroine was still a virgin at the end --which might be a first for a sexy historical romance!<br /><br />JoJo Beverleyhttp://www.jobev.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-88566397026423426502011-05-03T16:53:40.261+01:002011-05-03T16:53:40.261+01:00Do you know about the Long Now Foundation? I think...Do you know about the <a href="http://longnow.org" rel="nofollow">Long Now Foundation</a>? I think I first learned about it by way of Brian Eno, a board member. They have a Facebook page, too. Their statement of purpose:<br /><br /><i>The Long Now Foundation was established in 01996* to develop the Clock and Library projects, as well as to become the seed of a very long term cultural institution. The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide counterpoint to today's "faster/cheaper" mind set and promote "slower/better" thinking. We hope to creatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years.</i>C. Margery Kempehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15910282257993793334noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30203557.post-70866826658415884452011-05-02T23:05:01.308+01:002011-05-02T23:05:01.308+01:00In Metaphors We Live By George Lakoff and Mark Joh...In <i>Metaphors We Live By</i> George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argue that <br /><br /><i>Time in our culture is a valuable commodity. It is a limited resource that we use to accomplish our goals. Because of the way that the concept of work has developed in modern Western culture, where work is typically associated with the time it takes and time is precisely quantified, it has become customary to pay people by the hour, week, or year. In our culture TIME IS MONEY in many ways: telephone message units, hourly wages, hotel room rates, yearly budgets, interest on loans, and paying your debt to society by "serving time." These practices are relatively new in the history of the human race, and by no means do they exist in all cultures. They have arisen in modern industrialized societies and structure our basic everyday activities in a very profound way. Corresponding to the fact that we </i>act<i> as if time is a valuable commodity - a limited resource, even money - we </i>conceive of<i> time that way. Thus we understand and experience time as the kind of thing that can be spent, wasted, budgeted, invested wisely or poorly, saved, or squandered.<br />TIME IS MONEY, TIME IS A LIMITED RESOURCE, and TIME IS A VALUABLE COMMODITY are all metaphorical concepts. They are metaphorical since we are using our everyday experiences with money, limited resources, and valuable commodities to conceptualize time. This isn't a necessary way for human beings to conceptualize time; it is tied to our culture. There are cultures where time is none of these things.</i> (8-9)<br /><br />Part of the reason that we're expected to spend our time wisely is that we're supposed to invest it in self-improvement, so that we become more marketable commodities in the labor market: we can "sell" ourselves more easily if our CV is full of achievements.<br /><br />As for virginity, it seems to be a commodity with a somewhat undefined sell-by-date. It can be sold, given or taken and its value seems to vary depending on the age, gender, appearance etc of the container. According to <a href="http://psr.sagepub.com/content/8/4/339.abstract" rel="nofollow">Baumeister and Vohs</a>:<br /><br /><i>A heterosexual community can be analyzed as a marketplace in which men seek to acquire sex from women by offering other resources in exchange. Societies will therefore define gender roles as if women are sellers and men buyers of sex. Societies will endow female sexuality, but not male sexuality, with value (as in virginity, fidelity, chastity). The sexual activities of different couples are loosely interrelated by a marketplace, instead of being fully separate or private, and each couple's decisions may be influenced by market conditions.</i><br /><br />[I've <a href="http://teachmetonight.blogspot.com/2007/12/rakes-progress.html" rel="nofollow">blogged a bit about this</a>, and the "rake" in romance.]<br /><br />Given the way that the metaphors which govern the way we think about time and sex are so deeply engrained, and so thoroughly intertwined with market values, changing the way people think and feel about them is likely to be very, very difficult.Laura Vivancohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00906661869372622821noreply@blogger.com