Any Other Name
Of course, a horse is a horse
Hey! Is it getting cold where you are?
We’ve stepped into autumn with festivals around the world celebrating the moon and harvests before the winter months of the year - at least in the northern hemisphere.
No matter the half, emotions tend to mix as colors shift in the sky and leaves blow in the wind. Something in the air affecting moods as seasons shift.
Or maybe that’s just allergies.
New Athens
The first Polish language encyclopedia was published in 1746. The collection of information is notable for wild entries like this one:
Koń jaki jest, każdy widzi
Everyone can see what a horse is
Or as I’ve seen it and think sounds better: Everyone knows what a horse is.
Ridiculed as a bad joke from a time before modern publishing standards, views on how exactly Nowe Ateny should be read have twisted and turned throughout the last few centuries.
Sophistry, tautological reasoning, misguided explanations from the ignorant past.
The Nowe Ateny encyclopedia is filled with similar entries across its many pages.
Old Opinions
That matter-of-fact description of a horse has become an expression in Polish for something that should be obvious and self-evident.
Whether it’s an anachronistic critique of forgotten aristocratic irony or a reinterpretation of phrases that no longer rhyme, none of that matters to the initial impact of the words.
What I most enjoy about examining the inconsistencies between the original intention and the current interpretation is how both feel relevant to us today.
We can feel something familiar from someone long lost to the past. Words and emotions preserved in a text. Even if it’s now a joke to our ears - or an overused expression to some - it always feels undeniably human.
Immortal ideas hidden in an odd definition of a horse.
That complicated emotion is at the core of what I hoped to accomplish with Maneus.
Book Club
With all these fuzzy thoughts floating in my dreams and my waking life, I was more than happy to read the comments from the first week of my book club.
There isn’t exactly an abundance of activity, but there is some.
Enough to generate a decent discussion.
Enough to show how well Maneus asks those difficult questions.
If you haven’t joined, feel free to jump into the conversation whenever you want. Since it’s mostly just text posts, you don’t have to worry about specific timings or schedules.
As a reminder, the website is very experimental. Naomi built it in six weeks as her buildspace project.
She has told me an update will be coming out soon, but don’t be surprised if it’s a little hard to navigate. In my experience, the easiest way to access it is on a computer (desktop or laptop) with the Chrome browser.
Uncomfortable Counter
While each part of Maneus is in slightly different styles, the beginning is by far the most obscure.
That was my intention.
Less a traditionally modern structured story and more a philosophy text combined with a stage play.
I wanted the questions and themes to be asked in a relentless monotony of everyday modernity. That theme then picks up with an ancient style of epic tall tales. Battles and wars filled with heroes and villains.
The nature of humanity and the future of the planet on the line through dialogue and discussions.
After all, it would be quite silly to assume we all agree on what’s good and what’s evil.
Almost as ridiculous as saying everyone knows what a horse looks like.
Until next time.
Cheers,
John