Chris Krycho - Arthttp://v4.chriskrycho.com/2019-11-03T17:25:00-05:00Sympolymathesy, or: v5.chriskrycho.comhttps://v4.chriskrycho.com/2019/sympolymathesy-or-v5chriskrychocom.html2019-11-18T20:00:00.000-07:00<p><i><b><a href="https://v4.chriskrycho.com/2018/assumed-audiences.html">Assumed Audience</a>:</b> literally every single subscriber of this blog!</i></p>
<p>(I apologize if you’re seeing this in multiple feeds, if you are one of the people subscribed to more than one sub-feed on this site. I needed to make sure *all* my subscribers saw this.)</p>
<p>I’ve just officially launched v5.chriskrycho.com, “Sympolymathesy”. As such, this is the final post on this site! For all the details, check out <a href="https://v5.chriskrycho.com/journal/relaunch!/">the relaunch post</a>!</p>Chris Krychohello@chriskrycho.comhttps://www.chriskrycho.comPhotography-ing Again!2019-11-03T17:25:00-05:002019-11-03T17:25:00-05:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2019-11-03:/2019/photography-ing-again.htmlFor the past few months, I have been picking back up my long-dormant interest in photography. It feels good to be back at it!
<p><i><b><a href="https://v4.chriskrycho.com/2018/assumed-audiences.html">Assumed Audience</a>:</b> people who find photography and/or personal biography interesting.</i></p>
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<p>For the past few months, I have been picking back up my long-dormant interest in photography. I started trying to learn how to take good photographs back during college—first with an inexpensive point-and-shoot with a decent built-in zoom lens, then with an inexpensive Canon <abbr title="digital single lens reflex">DSLR</abbr> that was my college graduation present. I spent a decent amount of time on the hobby over those years, including doing some family and engagement photos for friends. (They were serviceable, not good; but I was learning a ton and it was a lot of fun… and my friends didn’t have to pay for them.) I was just starting to develop a more serious interest in the technical aspects of the art… when we moved to North Carolina and I started seminary.</p>
<p>For the next five years, I took essentially zero photos with a camera not attached to my smartphone. It was not that I was no longer interested; it was that I simply could not keep up that hobby <em>and</em> everything else I was doing. I was doing a <em>lot</em>—<a href="https://v4.chriskrycho.com/burnout">probably too much.</a> This summer, though, I found myself wanting to pick it back up in earnest. I was making good use of my phone camera, and I dug out my old <abbr>DSLR</abbr> and bought new batteries for it and started taking it with me on a regular basis. I knew the old camera had some serious limitations, but I wanted to see if I enjoyed and was able to make good practice out of shooting with it anyway. No point in buying a new camera if I wasn’t actually enjoying using the old one, if the hobby didn’t stick.</p>
<p>It stuck. This time, all the interest in technical aspects came back with a vengeance, so I have spent a not-inconsiderable amount of time wrapping my head around the physics of lenses. The limitations of the lenses I had for the old camera were very apparent every time I tried to take any kind of low-light shot, and its auto-focus performance was, well not bad for an inexpensive <abbr>DSLR</abbr> from a decade ago—if you take my meaning. Having gotten a much better handle on the physics involved, though, I initially thought that I might be able to get away with just keeping the old camera and investing in good lenses for it. Unfortunately, as I started poking around, I concluded that I basically <em>couldn’t</em> get some of the lenses I would want for it in the long term: wide primes with low 𝑓 numbers. Canon makes lenses in this bucket, but once you account for the <a href="https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/tips-and-solutions/understanding-crop-factor">crop factor</a> of an <abbr title="Advanced Photo System type-C">APS-C</abbr> camera like my old <abbr>DSLR</abbr>, your options for actually wide lenses are pretty limited.</p>
<p>A lot of my time over the last few months has gone to reading—a <em>lot</em>—about my options in the space. I discovered the <a href="https://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/what-is-a-mirrorless-camera/">mirrorless</a> revolution (most of a decade late), along with the dizzying array of lens options for full-frame cameras. Curious about how this worked in practice, I <a href="https://share.lensrentals.com/x/tIxLHl" title="LensRentals">rented</a> one of Sony’s <a href="https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/tips-and-solutions/understanding-crop-factor">full-frame</a> cameras for our family’s recent trip to North Carolina, and fell in love. (That’s an affiliate link for LensRentals: we both get $25 off a rental if you use it.) My own copy of the camera I had rented came this week, and I may have driven poor Jaimie slightly up the wall with all the pictures I’ve been taking since.<a href="#fn1" class="footnote-ref" id="fnref1" role="doc-noteref"><sup>1</sup></a></p>
<p>Once upon a time, I <a href="https://2012-2013.chriskrycho.com/art/category/photo/">tried</a> to include some photos in my blogging. I never got very far with it—in part because of the same lens limitations I ran into once I picked the hobby back up, but also because my old blog flow never really supported it well. (Sorry, 2012-era WordPress, but it’s true.) As I’m getting back into it, I want to find a way to make that flow work. This is yet another requirement for my much-delayed website redesign. I don’t think I’m going to have a solution I’m happy with in place by the time I ship (more on that soon, I hope!), but it’s something I <em>do</em> want to get in place before too long.</p>
<p>This also has me wishing there were better options for social sharing around photos. Indie blogging of the sort I so value is wonderful, but at the moment it doesn’t lend itself well to <em>interaction</em> around items like photography. I have a <em>lot</em> of thoughts on things like <a href="https://indieweb.org/Webmention">Webmention</a>, including how I plan to use it on my upcoming site redesign… but those are for another day. For today: thanks for reading!</p>
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<img src="https://cdn.chriskrycho.com/file/chriskrycho-com/images/Black%20%26%20White%20thumb.jpg" title="thumbnail of a photograph of a coffee shop" alt="" /><figcaption>Black & White Coffee, Wake Forest, NC – Sony FE 35mm F1.8 – 𝑓/2.2, ISO 400, ¹⁄₁₂₅s (<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chriskrycho/49009951457/">see full size</a>)</figcaption>
</figure>
<section class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes">
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<ol>
<li id="fn1" role="doc-endnote"><p>If you’re curious: a <a href="https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1494679-REG/sony_ilce7rm4_b_alpha_a7r_iv_mirrorless.html">Sony α7R IV</a>. It’s kind of ridiculously pricey… but I expect to get at <em>least</em> the next decade of shooting out of it, and the resolution is just bonkers, and the <em>feel</em> of the thing is absolutely delightful to me. If I were making a recommendation for an entry into the Sony mirrorless space, I’d point you instead to the <a href="https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1394217-REG/sony_ilce_7m3_alpha_a7_iii_mirrorless.html">Sony α7 III</a>, which is itself a phenomenal camera, and I almost got it instead.<a href="#fnref1" class="footnote-back" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p></li>
</ol>
</section>
Review: The Themis Files2019-10-21T08:50:00-04:002019-10-21T08:50:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2019-10-21:/2019/review-the-themis-files.htmlRecommended: a rollicking sci-fi trilogy about the discovery of giant robot mecha.
<p><i class=editorial>I keep my book review ratings simple—they’re either <em>required</em>, <em>recommended</em>, <em>recommended with qualifications</em>, or <em>not recommended</em>. If you want the TL;DR, this is it:</i></p>
<p><strong>Recommended:</strong> <cite>The Themis Files</cite> is a delightful trilogy of books by Sylvain Neuvel, about the discovery of giant mecha (“robots” but they need drivers!) left on Earth by an alien race ~3,000 years ago. Popcorn, but <em>really fun</em> popcorn. Neither plot nor characters dazzle, but they also don’t have to for it to succeed as a rollicking sci-fi romp. And it keeps things interesting with a literary conceit I’ve never seen done quite this way before: every chapter is an interview transcript or a personal journal entry. This occasionally breaks suspension of disbelief—people don’t monologue all of these kinds of things!—but it mostly works, even when it shouldn’t. Fun enough, and short enough, that I read the whole trilogy in 3 days.</p>
Beowulf: A Few Thoughts2019-09-06T21:21:00-04:002019-09-06T21:21:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2019-09-06:/2019/beowulf-a-few-thoughts.htmlI’m not sure you can review the great work of Old English literature. I offer instead a few notes on my experience of reading it for the first time.
<p><i><b><a href="https://v4.chriskrycho.com/2018/assumed-audiences.html">Assumed Audience</a>:</b> lovers of books… and typography.</i></p>
<p><i class=editorial>I keep my book review ratings simple—they’re either <em>required</em>, <em>recommended</em>, <em>recommended with qualifications</em>, or <em>not recommended</em>. If you want the TL;DR, this is it:</i></p>
<p><b>Required.</b> <cite>Beowulf</cite> is <em>the</em> great work of Old English literature, the oldest <em>literary work</em> in English full stop. It should be required reading (in a good translation!) for every high school student in English-speaking nations. I am not going to try to review it here; I’m not sure you <em>can</em> review a work like this, exactly. As well try to review the Iliad. (People with expertise in Old English could perhaps offer a review of the <em>translation</em>, but I have no such expertise.) I offer instead a few notes on my experience of reading it for the first time.</p>
<p>First things first: there are many ways to read this book. I read Seamus Heaney’s much-lauded translation, in <a href="https://www.wwnorton.com/books/9780393320978">this bilingual edition</a>.</p>
<p>Second, I had no idea what to expect from the poem. I have not spent much time reading epic poetry (to my loss, I think!), and I had only the vaguest familiarity with the story. I cannot judge the accuracy of the translation, but I can say this for it: it was good poetry, and I found it thoroughly engaging. It was like and unlike reading a novel, for many reasons: the medium, of course, and most obviously; but also the form and structure—because this poem (of course!) knows nothing of a genre that developed most of a millennium after it had been written! It gripped me, as a good story does. The language was beautiful, and as a poem it <em>moved</em> in a way that the prose of very few novels even begin to hint at.<a href="#fn1" class="footnote-ref" id="fnref1" role="doc-noteref"><sup>1</sup></a> I have now a great desire to find and read more—much more—of Seamus Heaney’s own poetry.</p>
<p>Finally, I cannot help but comment on the physical presentation of the text here. The <a href="https://www.wwnorton.com/books/9780393320978">edition</a> I have is a bilingual text, with the Old English on the left page and Heaney’s translation on the right. The presentation of Heaney’s introduction and translation are lovely—well-typeset in Palatino. The bilingual materials, which I was glad to have (consider my curiosity about Old English very much piqued!), is unfortunately much <em>less</em> well-typeset. It appears to be in Times New Roman, and if TNR is over-criticized and underappreciated, it simply looks jarring(ly bad) when set side by side with Palatino. The typesetting of the non-bilingual text appears to be the same as in my copy of the text, so I would commend that to you instead of the edition I read for most readers.</p>
<p>(If I had to guess, I would venture this failure was a function of the comparative dearth of options available to set Old English text 20 years ago. Today we have a striking wealth of typefaces with incredibly multilingual support, including for the characters used in Old English—so I would love to see this bilingual presentation re-typeset at some point.)</p>
<p>If you’ve never read the poem, you should! I enjoyed it greatly, and I expect to come back to it in the years ahead. And who knows: I may even slowly pick up Old English to be able to appreciate the original.</p>
<section class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes">
<hr />
<ol>
<li id="fn1" role="doc-endnote"><p>The only books I have read which come anywhere close are Tolkien’s; no surprise there for long-time readers of mine, but also no surprise for anyone who is familiar with Tolkien’s own history with <cite>Beowulf</cite>. His encounter with it shaped him in profound ways; and he in turn shaped the field of studies of the text in profound ways.<a href="#fnref1" class="footnote-back" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p></li>
</ol>
</section>
Review: Shades of Milk and Honey2019-08-17T09:25:00-04:002019-08-17T09:25:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2019-08-17:/2019/review-shades-of-milk-and-honey.htmlRecommended: I enjoyed Mary Robinette Kowal’s magic-meets-Regency-romance much more than I expected to.
<p><i><b><a href="https://v4.chriskrycho.com/2018/assumed-audiences.html">Assumed Audience</a>:</b> book lovers!</i></p>
<p><i class=editorial>I keep my book review ratings simple—they’re either <em>required</em>, <em>recommended</em>, <em>recommended with qualifications</em>, or <em>not recommended</em>. If you want the TL;DR, this is it:</i></p>
<p><b>Recommended:</b> Regency period piece styled with language and plot reminiscent of an Austen novel… but with more magic and less irony and social commentary. I picked it up because I <a href="https://v4.chriskrycho.com/2018/the-calculating-stars.html">loved</a> her Lady Astronaut books and Jaimie has loved this series for years. In a turn I did not expect (because, well, this is not my genre!), it proved not only to be <em>good</em> (which I did expect) but also to be a genuine page-turner; I stayed up late one night last week to finish it. A nice little magic system, excellent use of period literary style, good characters, engaging plot. Will read the rest of the series!</p>
Time Does Not Heal2019-01-14T18:50:00-05:002019-01-14T18:50:00-05:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2019-01-14:/2019/time-does-not-heal.htmlTime does not heal all wounds, only / papers over, lets fade, until…
<div class="line-block">Time does not heal all wounds, only<br />
papers over, lets fade, until<br />
the sharpness of a blow is less—<br />
but not diminished in its depth—<br />
and naught but eschaton will right<br />
the hurts which change us deepest, most;<br />
and that our crooked pains will not<br />
undo—but of them make us <em>new</em>.</div>
Ringworld Review2018-10-14T17:30:00-04:002018-10-14T17:30:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2018-10-14:/2018/ringworld-review.htmlRecommended: A classic, Hugo- and Nebula-winning novel: I <em>enjoyed</em> it… but it felt a bit overrated.
<p><i class=editorial>I keep my book review ratings simple—they’re either <em>required</em>, <em>recommended</em>, <em>recommended with qualifications</em>, or <em>not recommended</em>. If you want the TL;DR, this is it:</i></p>
<p><strong>Recommended:</strong> In want of a bit of classic sci-fi, I recently picked up Larry Niven’s <cite>Ringworld</cite> and read it this week. I enjoyed it, but more than that I find it hard to say. I’m still not sure exactly what to describe it as: an exploratory high concept romp, maybe. The characters were fine, the plot serviceable, and the two high concepts very high indeed. (Certainly the more interesting of those conceits is the one <em>not</em> advertized by the title of the book.) I’m not sad I read it; I also don’t think I’d read it again. I might even call it a bit overrated.</p>
Review: The Fated Sky2018-08-31T07:00:00-04:002018-08-31T07:00:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2018-08-31:/2018/review-the-fated-sky.htmlRecommended: Mary Robinette Kowal picks up her alt-history of the space program after a meteor strike and continues doing what sci-fi does best: throwing new light on present-day cultural issues by showing something that *isn't* the present day.
<p><i class=editorial>I keep my book review ratings simple—they’re either <em>required</em>, <em>recommended</em>, <em>recommended with qualifications</em>, or <em>not recommended</em>. If you want the TL;DR, this is it:</i></p>
<p><strong>Recommended:</strong> Mary Robinette Kowal picks up her alt-history of the space program after a meteor strike and continues doing what sci-fi does best: throwing new light on present-day cultural issues by showing something that <em>isn’t</em> the present day. Where the first book looked head-on at sexism, the second carries that line forward but digs in on racism as well. And all this while still being an exciting <em>novel</em> with interesting characters and an engaging (if never quite surprising) novel. It doesn’t have quite the same magic <em>The Calculating Stars</em> did, but I still enjoyed it very thoroughly.</p>
Review: The Calculating Stars2018-08-19T16:00:00-04:002018-08-19T16:00:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2018-08-19:/2018/the-calculating-stars.htmlRequired: Mary Robinette Kowal’s alt-history of the space program (after a meteor strike!) is wonderful—smashingly-good plotting which somehow makes a half decade span feel *urgent* and *fast-paced*; a fantastic lead character; an interesting examination of women’s friendships; and frank treatment of both sexism and mental illness without being preachy about either. This was one of my favorite pieces of science-fiction I’ve read in a long time.
<p><i class=editorial>I keep my book review ratings simple—they’re either <em>required</em>, <em>recommended</em>, <em>recommended with qualifications</em>, or <em>not recommended</em>. If you want the TL;DR, this is it:</i></p>
<p><strong>Required:</strong> Mary Robinette Kowal’s alt-history of the space program (after a meteor strike!) is wonderful—smashingly-good plotting which somehow makes a half decade span feel <em>urgent</em> and <em>fast-paced</em>; a fantastic lead character; an interesting examination of women’s friendships; and frank treatment of both sexism and mental illness without being preachy about either. This was one of my favorite pieces of science-fiction I’ve read in a long time.</p>
A Strange Little Thought2018-02-23T07:15:00-05:002018-02-23T07:15:00-05:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2018-02-23:/2018/a-strange-little-thought.htmlI was, for some reason, thinking about the movie _Groundhog Day_ this morning… and it led me to wonder: What would I think of yesterday’s choices if I had to live today over and over again?
<p>I was, for some reason, thinking about the movie <em>Groundhog Day</em> this morning, and thinking about what it would be like to be caught in a temporal loop of that sort. Plenty of interesting things have been said about the movie (which is <em>very</em> good), but one I’ve not considered before is the extent to which the day Bill Murray’s character lives (and lives and lives and lives) is a product of choices he made the day before.</p>
<p>The loudest (though least important) of these earlier choices in the film is the alarm clock which wakes Murray’s character every day. He starts the day on the same radio station to the same vapid announcements because of choices he is powerless to affect in any way throughout the film: whatever he had done the night before.</p>
<p>The quieter (but much more important) versions of that are that the people in the town are who they are, and Murray’s own character is who and what he is, because of choices now out of all of their hands. The past is fixed to us, and in very real ways, we are who we are and live the lives we live now because of things we have already done (and things others have already done) and which we cannot change. That goes for it all: good, bad, and indifferent. And so the other side of the coin is that the choices we make <em>today</em> similarly mark our courses for the future.</p>
<p>Nothing particularly profound or novel in any of that, of course. It was just something that was made a bit more striking in thinking about the predicament of a man caught in a time loop, living the exact same day over and over and therefore more particularly confronted with the choices that had led him to that specific day. <em>What</em>, I wonder, <em>would I think of yesterday’s choices if I had to live today over and over again?</em> And likewise: <em>What of tomorrow and the choices I make today?</em>—even just at that simplest level of setting an alarm.</p>
<p>Just a strange little thought to start the day.</p>
Agent of Change2018-02-16T06:30:00-05:002018-02-16T06:30:00-05:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2018-02-16:/2018/agent-of-change.htmlSometimes you just need “popcorn”—and Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s first novel is exactly that. (Just… pardon the frequent POV switches.)<p><i class=editorial>I keep my book review ratings simple—they’re either <em>required</em>, <em>recommended</em>, <em>recommended with qualifications</em>, or <em>not recommended</em>. If you want the TL;DR, this is it:</i></p>
<p><strong>Recommended:</strong> Sometimes you just need “popcorn”—and Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s first novel is exactly that. (Just… pardon the frequent POV switches.)</p>
<hr />
<p>At my friend <a href="http://stephencarradini.com">Stephen</a>’s recommendation (“a surprisingly fun sci-fi adventure romp. Lots of romantic tension, surprisingly chaste (and pretty satisfying) payoff [with] some of the coolest, most interesting protagonist aliens I’ve read about in a long time”) I picked up Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s <em>Agent of Change</em>,<a href="#fn1" class="footnote-ref" id="fnref1" role="doc-noteref"><sup>1</sup></a> and I quite enjoyed it.</p>
<p>Sometimes, in the midst of hammering away at work and dealing with the tumult of moving into a new house, it’s nice to grab the literary equivalent of a bag of chips or a bowl of popcorn. This is that. There was nothing in this book that was anything like as interesting or engaging as sci-fi <a href="http://v4.chriskrycho.com/2017/icehenge.html" title="Icehenge (review on this site)">can be</a>—but it was, in Stephen’s words, an <em>adventure romp</em>, and that was perfect. The characters are fun, well-drawn if never particularly surprising. The plot is essentially an escape story (and in more ways than it first appears).</p>
<p>The only real <em>problem</em> on display with the book is that it completely disregards anything like modern conventions around point-of-view. A paragraph break is sufficient for a total change of internal perspective. This drove me crazy the entire book.</p>
<p>Might I read another entry in this universe, the next time I’m looking for merely a romp? Indeed I might.</p>
<section class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes">
<hr />
<ol>
<li id="fn1" role="doc-endnote"><p><em>Agent of Change</em> is the first book in their Liaden series. It’s also listed as anything <em>but</em> the first book, because republication and branding have dropped it at its chronological position in their larger universe… but book <em>nine</em> it is not, whatever Amazon tells you.<a href="#fnref1" class="footnote-back" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p></li>
</ol>
</section>
Icehenge2017-08-14T21:00:00-04:002017-08-14T21:00:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2017-08-14:/2017/icehenge.htmlKim Stanley Robinson comes highly recommended, so in a moment of overwhelming need to read science fiction the other evening, I snagged a novel of his in ebook form, and read it over the weekend. I loved it.
<p><i class=editorial>I keep my book review ratings simple—they’re either <em>required</em>, <em>recommended</em>, <em>recommended with qualifications</em>, or <em>not recommended</em>. If you want the TL;DR, this is it:</i></p>
<p><strong>Recommended:</strong> this is good sci-fi—the kind that makes you think while also being a bit of a page-turner.</p>
<hr />
<p>Kim Stanley Robinson comes highly recommended, so in a moment of overwhelming need to read science fiction the other evening, I snagged a novel of his in ebook form, and read it over the weekend. I loved it.</p>
<p>Do you remember being 6? I have only the barest glimmers of it. An image will come rushing back sometimes, of something I experienced then—a moment of delight, or horror, all at once, full of sensation and bright color and feeling. Or a smell will bring something from my teenage years back: cut grass makes me think of two-a-day practices for football, without fail. But the past is behind me in a way that is hard to describe, and which I have often thought about, but rarely so much as in the days I was reading (and in the days since finished reading) this little novel about the politics of Mars and a slowly-colonizing Solar System.</p>
<p>Because <em>Icehenge</em>, its name notwithstanding, really isn’t much at all about a massive Stonehenge-like construction, all of ice, on Pluto. It’s about memory, and what it would be like to live to 600 in a body that ages slowly but with a mind still incapable of holding on to the past, and the stories we tell to make sense of the world, and the hunger for truth, and the things that get in the way of the pure pursuit of the truth, and power, and loneliness, and what the past means and how we get at it in the present.</p>
<p>I expect to be reading considerably more of KSR.</p>
Beren and Lúthien2017-08-09T18:00:00-04:002017-08-09T18:00:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2017-08-09:/2017/beren-and-luthien.htmlRecommended: Beren and Lúthien is a beautiful collection detailing the progression of what was perhaps J. R. R. Tolkien's personally most-treasured tale he wrote.
<p><i class=editorial>I keep my book review ratings simple—they’re either <em>required</em>, <em>recommended</em>, <em>recommended with qualifications</em>, or <em>not recommended</em>. If you want the TL;DR, this is it:</i></p>
<p><strong>Recommended:</strong> This is a beautiful book—not, perhaps, for everyone, but truly delightful for its intended audience.</p>
<hr />
<p><em>Beren and Lúthien</em> is a beautiful collection detailing the progression of what was perhaps J. R. R. Tolkien’s personally most-treasured tale he wrote. This slim little volume was also likely the last of Tolkien’s works to be published by his now very-old son Christopher, who has made the history of his father’s literary creation his own latter life’s work. At 92, he is (as he notes in this volume’s foreword) unlikely to publish any more material. This was a good note to end on.</p>
<p>But this is not a book I would hand to just anyone. As a picture of the development of one of the central tales in Tolkien’s legendarium, it is fascinating—though little of the material is new; much of it was presented already in the various histories Christopher Tolkien compiled over the past decades. For a casual reader of fantasy, or even a casual fan of Tolkien himself, it is unlikely to be interesting at all. But for those who love Tolkien’s work, and especially those who love this particular tale, this is a little treasure.</p>
<p>The version of the tale in <em>The Silmarillion</em> is quite beautiful in its own right—I read it aloud to Jaimie many years ago, on a night when the only thing that would calm baby Ellie was the combination of Jaimie holding her and the sound of my voice, and it made Jaimie weep. Tolkien could do that. But the version in which his elegant and lyrical tone finds its fullest expression (and the best version of the tale) is here, in <em>The Lay of Leithian</em>. The love story in poetic form—sadly, unfinished—is utterly lovely. I couldn’t have been happier, in literary terms, than when I was reading its many lines of coupled verse.</p>
To paint God as a man2016-12-23T18:00:00-05:002016-12-23T18:00:00-05:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2016-12-23:/2016/to-paint-god-as-a-man.html<div class="line-block">To paint God as a man<br />
would be the height of arrogance<br />
had he not first himself begun<br />
with wailing, mortal brush<br />
straight to stroke the universe’s bented lines</div>
<div class="line-block">To paint God as a man<br />
would be the height of arrogance<br />
had he not first himself begun<br />
with wailing, mortal brush<br />
straight to stroke the universe’s bented lines</div>
I am not a Grinch2016-12-10T08:43:00-05:002016-12-10T08:43:00-05:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2016-12-10:/2016/i-am-not-a-grinch.html<div class="line-block">I’ll not begrudge you<br />
your sentimentality<br />
so leave me my joy</div>
<div class="line-block">I’ll not begrudge you<br />
your sentimentality<br />
so leave me my joy</div>
“Abi’s Processional”2016-10-04T07:31:00-04:002016-10-04T07:31:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2016-10-04:/2016/abis-processional.html<p>I don’t often get to compose anymore, but every once in a while I still have opportunities. Here’s <a href="https://soundcloud.com/chriskrycho/abis-processional">the processional I wrote for my little sister’s wedding</a>—a trio for cello, oboe, and piano.</p>
<p>(Unfortunately, almost no one heard this, because it started raining—outdoor wedding—and …</p><p>I don’t often get to compose anymore, but every once in a while I still have opportunities. Here’s <a href="https://soundcloud.com/chriskrycho/abis-processional">the processional I wrote for my little sister’s wedding</a>—a trio for cello, oboe, and piano.</p>
<p>(Unfortunately, almost no one heard this, because it started raining—outdoor wedding—and the sound guys didn’t know to turn up the volume.)</p>
<iframe title="Abi's Processional" style="width: 100%; max-height: 6.556em; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/285984308&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true">
</iframe>
escape modernity2016-07-27T08:56:00-04:002016-07-27T08:56:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2016-07-27:/2016/escape-modernity.html<div class="line-block">struggle as i may<br />
i cannot escape my<br />
modernity<br />
for even the attempt<br />
is but another symptom</div>
<div class="line-block">struggle as i may<br />
i cannot escape my<br />
modernity<br />
for even the attempt<br />
is but another symptom</div>
Mornings like this2016-06-05T09:17:00-04:002016-06-05T09:17:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2016-06-05:/2016/mornings-like-this.html<div class="line-block">Mornings like this—oh, mornings like this<br />
I need the Word preached, and the Table<br />
And (not least) the People of God<br />
Mornings like this perhaps most of all<br />
When I want nothing more than solitude<br />
And to rest, to be all alone<br />
Mornings like this: faithfulness proves out.</div>
<div class="line-block">Mornings like this—oh, mornings like this<br />
I need the Word preached, and the Table<br />
And (not least) the People of God<br />
Mornings like this perhaps most of all<br />
When I want nothing more than solitude<br />
And to rest, to be all alone<br />
Mornings like this: faithfulness proves out.</div>
Ask2016-05-31T21:18:00-04:002016-05-31T21:18:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2016-05-31:/2016/ask.html<p><i class='editorial'>My wife and a few others regularly do a 30-minute writing challenge every Tuesday evening. This week, since I’m taking some time off, I got to participate! The prompt was: <em>Write a story about trees which whisper poems to those who know how to hear them. (It’s not …</em></i></p><p><i class='editorial'>My wife and a few others regularly do a 30-minute writing challenge every Tuesday evening. This week, since I’m taking some time off, I got to participate! The prompt was: <em>Write a story about trees which whisper poems to those who know how to hear them. (It’s not allowed to be scary.)</em></i></p>
<hr />
<p>Her first question was: “Who taught the trees to speak?”</p>
<p>Her second, of course, was: “Any why only in such <em>awful</em> poetry?”</p>
<p>I didn’t always know about the whispers, and of course I didn’t believe old Dallet when he told me about it, and it took me six weeks to hear them for the first time myself—so I didn’t particularly expect Annyth to hear them immediately after I mentioned them to her. I probably should have. She’d always been a little odd. But whatever the reason, she just blinked those round not-quite-brown, not-quite-green eyes at me a few times, like some slightly startled owl caught out in daylight, and then giggled.</p>
<p>For good reason: the spruces had just started in on a ridiculous ditty about nymphs—</p>
<div class="line-block"><em>They dance like dancers</em><br />
<em>and twirl like twirlers</em><br />
<em>and all the little nymphs</em><br />
<em>are sort of like curlers</em><br />
<em>but sans the ice</em><br />
<em>and add a dash of spice…</em></div>
<p>You get the idea. The <em>worst</em> kinds of puns and rhymes, for hours on end. Annyth’s second question had good cause.</p>
<p>Apparently, I’d gotten lost in my own mind again, listening to the rhymes, because she repeated her questions.</p>
<p>“Who taught the trees to speak? Any why only in such <em>awful</em> poetry?”</p>
<p>I shrugged. “No one knows who taught them. Maybe they’ve always known.” She somehow managed to furrow her brows <em>and</em> quirk them at me at the same time. “Okay, probably not, but Dallet said his grandfather taught him, and that <em>his</em> great-uncle taught him, and so on back a thousand years, and either the first one forgot to tell anyone that he was the one responsible for it all, or everyone else—”</p>
<p>“Heard this terrible poetry and decided to make sure his name didn’t live on at all?”</p>
<p>I laughed. "Probably.</p>
<p>The nymph poem had ended; now they were onto something about stream beds…</p>
<div class="line-block"><em>It runs, so cool, down through the bed</em><br />
<em>And even though, the stream, it has no head</em><br />
<em>It likes to lie down in its bed</em><br />
<em>Until it comes to make us fed…</em></div>
<p>She turned away from the trees for a moment and looked at me. “Is it… <em>always</em> this bad?”</p>
<p>I shrugged again. “Not… <em>always</em>.”</p>
<p>Now her eyebrows were <em>raised</em> and quirked.</p>
<p>“I mean, sometimes it’s actually worse. When they start telling limericks… just stop up your ears. But every once in a while some tree or another will start up a sonnet and you’ll get those fourteen lines of decency.”</p>
<p>She smirked. “A sonnet? Tree love poems?”</p>
<p>I shrugged again. I seemed to be doing a lot of that today. “As far as tree love poems go, honestly, the sonnets are preferable. Sappy but not… weird.”</p>
<p>Now the eyebrows went completely flat. “I don’t think I want to know.”</p>
<p>“You don’t, but you probably will, soon enough. Now that you’ve heard them, you’ll never be able to <em>unhear</em> them.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean?” The eyebrows were climbing again. “Don’t they stop?”</p>
<p>I smiled my <em>worried</em> smile at her. “What, exactly, do you think you’re hearing?”</p>
<p>The eyebrows furrowed for a moment again as she listened, then twitched and quivered a moment in what looked like consternation, then rose until I thought they would come entirely off the top of her head. “No. No no no no no.”</p>
<p>I shrugged. Again. <em>Stop shrugging, idiot.</em></p>
<p>“It’s the <em>wind</em>?”</p>
<p>I nodded, smiled my <em>sympathetic, just-one-side-of-my-mouth quirked</em> smile at her. “And when was the last time you heard a day without a breeze?”</p>
<p>Annyth shook her head. Her eyebrows were darting furiously this way and that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such versatile eyebrows, truly. She started breathing a little faster. Her eyes were darting to match her eyebrows. “You mean to tell me that you thought it would be <em>nice</em> to subject me to these awful, awful rhymes for the <em>rest of my life</em>?”</p>
<p>“I…”</p>
<p>“That’s what you said, you…” she paused, listened for a moment:</p>
<div class="line-block"><em>like a jolly little man with no brain</em><br />
<em>he dances across the plain</em><br />
<em>and does a dance, a sprightly jig</em><br />
<em>as if he were a baboon grown over big</em></div>
<p>“You little man with no brain, you baboon grown over big!” The eyebrows were low and fierce.</p>
<p>I… shrugged. <em>Again.</em> What was it with the shrugs today?</p>
<p>Annyth paused. “They weren’t <em>actually</em> singing that about you, were they?” Now the eyebrows were in thinking posture: left furrowed more than right, right slightly quirked.</p>
<p>I tried desperately to keep my shoulders from moving. No more shrugs. “I… honestly don’t know. I’ve never really paid attention to why the songs change.”</p>
<p>Annyth stared at me like I were a complete dunce.</p>
<div class="line-block"><em>He does not see, he has no eyes</em><br />
<em>Though stare out from his face they do</em><br />
<em>He listens to winds and hears but lies</em><br />
<em>Though every day he hears the truth</em></div>
<p><em>My</em> eyes went wide. <em>Her</em> eyes went wide. We looked at the trees. I swallowed. “That was… just a coincidence, don’t you think?”</p>
<p>The wind stopped.</p>
<p>I shivered, looked at her. Her hazel owl eyes stared back wide.</p>
<p>And then it whispered in the spruce trees.</p>
<div class="line-block"><em>Ask</em></div>
<p>We breathed. “Ask what?” Annyth whispered back.</p>
<div class="line-block"><em>Ask, ask, ask</em><br />
<em>Ten thousand years</em></div>
<p>Call and response: the oaks were answering the spruce trees with a low flutter to the whisper in the needles.</p>
<div class="line-block"><em>Ask, ask, ask</em><br />
<em>Just one question</em><br />
<em>Ask, ask, ask</em><br />
<em>Ignored, unheard</em><br />
<em>Ask, ask, ask</em><br />
<em>Why do you have ears</em><br />
<em>Ask, ask, ask</em><br />
<em>And we speak</em><br />
<em>Ask, ask, ask</em><br />
<em>And you listen not</em><br />
<em>Ask, ask, ask</em><br />
<em>Ask, ask, ask</em><br />
<em>Ask, ask, ask</em><br />
<em>Ask, ask, ask</em></div>
<p>Silence, again.</p>
<p>I looked at Annyth, ran my tongue across my bottom teeth, shrugged (of course), and mouthed, “Ask?”</p>
<p>She giggled. The sound startled in the silence, but still the trees stood waiting.</p>
<p>I cleared my throat. “Ask what?”</p>
<p>Silence.</p>
<p>She rolled her eyes at me. “Who taught you to speak?”</p>
<p>Silence.</p>
<p>Then, like a whispered shout in the gathering dusk, spruce and oak in chorus:</p>
<div class="line-block"><em>God</em></div>
<p>That was new.</p>
<p>She smiled at me. “When?”</p>
<div class="line-block"><em>At dawn</em><br />
<em>At beginning times</em><br />
<em>At start of age</em><br />
<em>At end of unseeing</em></div>
<p>Eyebrows wide, Annyth asked: “Why?”</p>
<div class="line-block"><em>Ask, ask, ask</em></div>
<p>Annyth’s eyes were bright with joy, and round; her eyebrows high again. I shrugged uncomprehending. “Don’t you hear?” she said. “We just keep asking. That’s what we do. Until we find the truth. We keep asking.”</p>
<div class="line-block"><em>Ask, ask, ask</em></div>
<p>The poetry ran on. But no more folly. Now it had <em>answers.</em></p>
the clouds I miss2016-05-20T15:00:00-04:002016-05-20T15:00:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2016-05-20:/2016/the-clouds-i-miss.html<div class="line-block">Strange, but I find<br />
it is the clouds I miss<br />
from Colorado<br />
as much as the mountains<br />
off which they roll<br />
and thunder on a summer afternoon.</div>
<div class="line-block">Strange, but I find<br />
it is the clouds I miss<br />
from Colorado<br />
as much as the mountains<br />
off which they roll<br />
and thunder on a summer afternoon.</div>
even Easter morning2016-03-27T11:50:00-04:002016-03-27T11:50:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2016-03-27:/2016/even-easter-morning.htmlThe ways we carry on in this modern world / do at times perplex me / for we are not, or not especially, / mindful of the world around us<div class="line-block">The ways we carry on in this modern world<br />
do at times perplex me<br />
for we are not, or not especially,<br />
mindful of the world around us.<br />
<br />
It is charged, they say, charged with wonder,<br />
and I suppose it must be<br />
for this is a world where God became a man,<br />
and died, and lived again<br />
<br />
But every day seems a day like another,<br />
even Easter morning<br />
Because we do still live in the time<br />
between the times:<br />
<br />
Christ is risen!<br />
—and we still die, and mourn<br />
(but not without hope)—<br />
Christ will come again!<br />
<br />
And this is why we meet<br />
this is why we sing<br />
and tell each other again<br />
the old story, as if new<br />
<br />
So that on gray days like every other<br />
even Easter morning<br />
We remember, though still in the time<br />
between the times:<br />
<br />
Christ is risen!<br />
—and we will live, and dance<br />
(when we see our hope)—<br />
Christ will come again!</div>
what darkness crawls on human hearts2016-03-26T21:21:00-04:002016-03-26T21:21:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2016-03-26:/2016/what-darkness-crawls-on-human-hearts.html<div class="line-block">what darkness crawls on human hearts<br />
in times between times, in waitings,<br />
what shadows ’twine and strangle souls<br />
after hoping’s wretched end<br />
<br />
what murks do clamp on human hopes<br />
in days which be nights, in sorrows<br />
what gloom does bind and tangle minds<br />
after dreaming’s left undone<br />
<br />
but …</div><div class="line-block">what darkness crawls on human hearts<br />
in times between times, in waitings,<br />
what shadows ’twine and strangle souls<br />
after hoping’s wretched end<br />
<br />
what murks do clamp on human hopes<br />
in days which be nights, in sorrows<br />
what gloom does bind and tangle minds<br />
after dreaming’s left undone<br />
<br />
but<br />
nights end<br />
and<br />
night’s end<br />
yet…</div>
through a paper veil2016-02-23T15:16:00-05:002016-02-23T15:16:00-05:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2016-02-23:/2016/through-a-paper-veil.htmlAn author does a strange thing / when he writes the words “at present.” / …<div class="line-block">An author does a strange thing<br />
when he writes the words “at present.”<br />
Whose present,<br />
and if I reread the words—which?<br />
We are sharing times<br />
and mental space<br />
albeit through a paper veil.</div>
Time2016-01-23T19:45:00-05:002016-01-23T19:45:00-05:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2016-01-23:/2016/time.htmlJaimie and I are presently trapped in a hotel in New York City, courtesy of winter weather. We decided to do a little writing challenge! This is mine.<p><i class="editorial">Jaimie and I are presently trapped in a hotel in New York City, courtesy of winter weather. We decided to do a little writing challenge! The rules of our challenge were: we had 30 minutes to write at least 500 words, it had to be fantasy, it had to be about someone the opposite sex of the author, and it had to be about someone elderly. This is mine.</i></p>
<hr />
<p>The door opened, but it did not creak. It <em>always</em> creaked. Like Janice’s bones in the morning, it creaked.</p>
<p>She frowned at the back of the door facing her. Someone stood there, it seemed; a shadow darkened the floor by the doorway. Her eyes were rheumy enough, and the room layout ridicuous enough, that she couldn’t say more.</p>
<p>"Who is it? she called out. Croaked out, more like, but that was the price of eighty years’ of cigarettes.</p>
<p>«Time.» Helpful response, that was.</p>
<p>“What’s that?” She was still croaking. She coughed, tried to clear her throat.</p>
<p>«Time,» he said again. She thought it was a he, but his voice sounded funny. Far away. Then again, her ears had been going for long enough now.</p>
<p>“Time? Kids aren’t coming today, so you can have all you want. But who are you?”</p>
<p>«It. is. time.»</p>
<p>The shadow looked darker. She frowned, pursed her lips, and shook her head. “Young man—you are young, aren’t you? You don’t sound old—come in here and sit down and explain yourself.”</p>
<p>«I. sit. for. no. one.»</p>
<p>Janice blinked a few times. She sat back in her chair. She tried to take a deep breath, coughed, coughed some more, gave up on the deep breath, contented herself with a swallow instead. That seemed more appropriate anyway. But no, she was just being absurd. Old, even.</p>
<p>“Well, all right, then, but come in where I can see you.”</p>
<p>«No. it. is. your. time.»</p>
<p>She swallowed again.</p>
<p>“Time for what?” Just to be sure. The shadow was still getting darker. It could have been her eyes, but the rest of the room was the same as before: fuzzed out to an irritating degree, but bright enough.</p>
<p>«Time. to. depart.»</p>
<p>“Son, or whatever you are” (she no longer thought it was anyone who ought to be called son, or daughter for that matter) “be clear. I don’t have time for whatever your game is. Had enough of foolishness twenty years ago.”</p>
<p>«It. is. time. for. you. to. depart. this. life.»</p>
<p>Well, then. One thing to have a half-cocked notion of a thing like that, but another hear it from the mouth of… time? itself. “Is it now?” she managed. “Well, you took long enough getting here. Family’s been telling me that for a good twenty years now.”</p>
<p>Where the shadow stood on the floor in front of the door was all dark now. Shaped something like a man, for all her blurred sight could make out, but black as a night when all the moons were down.</p>
<p>She was ready, though. Ready as you could be. “Do you announce yourself to <em>everyone</em> like this, or just half-blind old ladies?” She sounded like a bullfrog with a sore throat.</p>
<p>The shadow answered. «All. those. who. have. time.»</p>
<p>Helpful. Not that it mattered. She <em>was</em> ready. She was.</p>
<p>The shadow was suddenly before her. A starless, moonless night. Time indeed.</p>
<p>Janice stood up. Face it on your feet, she’d always said. To the blazes with that, now, she concluded. Face it asleep in the night was a better plan. But here she was.</p>
<p>She could still run. Jump a little even. So she did. She threw herself at the shadow, and as she came to it, she thought she saw stars.</p>
<p>And then everything was gone except the stars, whirling before suddenly clear eyes. Ten billion galaxies whirled; pulsars flamed and danced in time; suns flared and planets spun.</p>
<p>Green grass, dusted with snow.</p>
<p>«You. have. time.»</p>
<p>She looked up. Stars, not night.</p>
<p>«Spend. it. well.»</p>
<p>She stood.</p>
Fall Haiku2015-11-22T10:10:00-05:002015-11-22T10:10:00-05:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2015-11-22:/2015/fall-haiku.htmlThe sky is – not bleak, but – gray…<div class="line-block">The sky is – not bleak, but – gray;<br />
few leaves remain to<br />
autumn branches clinging.</div>
October was2015-11-05T10:00:00-05:002015-11-05T10:00:00-05:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2015-11-05:/2015/october-was.htmlOctober was a long month, and strange, /
for how quickly it seemed to end…<div class="line-block">October was a long month, and strange,<br />
for how quickly it seemed to end.<br />
Long days, and many weary of them,<br />
yet also more to do than fit.<br />
And, much the same, so this year has gone,<br />
but two months left; the rest behind.<br />
Life, it seems, is brief; it passes quick,<br />
so stewardship of days comes dear.<br />
Falls’ leaves, and spring’s, come swift and swifter<br />
take heed, with reckoning in mind.<br />
Live full and well, diligent and glad;<br />
count each day and decade—a gift.</div>
Two Podcast Themes2015-09-30T07:10:00-04:002015-09-30T07:10:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2015-09-30:/2015/two-podcast-themes.htmlThis summer, I wrote themes for two podcasts I launched. Take a listen!<p>This summer, I launched two podcasts. (This reminds me: I need to put up the second episode of one of those tomorrow, and record and publish the second episode of the other by Friday. Lots to do!) Here are the themes for the two shows:</p>
<iframe title="Theme for Sap.py" height="300" width="300" style="padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em; margin: auto; display: block;" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/217984865&auto_play=false&color=5592c9&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true">
</iframe>
<iframe title="New Rustacean Theme" height="300" width="300" style="padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em; margin: auto; display: block;" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/225441161&auto_play=false&color=5592c9&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true">
</iframe>
On learning to make art2015-09-10T21:11:00-04:002015-09-10T21:11:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2015-09-10:/2015/on-learning-to-make-art.html<p>I would not say <a href="/2015/fleet-once-more.html">the poem</a> I posted today is particularly good—but I wrote it, and that is something. I want to be writing longer-form, narrative poetry, and this has a <em>little</em> more of that than what I have been doing lately. I need to start using constraining forms …</p><p>I would not say <a href="/2015/fleet-once-more.html">the poem</a> I posted today is particularly good—but I wrote it, and that is something. I want to be writing longer-form, narrative poetry, and this has a <em>little</em> more of that than what I have been doing lately. I need to start using constraining forms (and especially historical forms) once more: that makes for richer, better poetry from me.</p>
<p>This is significant: we learn how to do certain kinds of creative work (perhaps all creative work!) by closely following the forms and approaches of those who preceded us. This is just as true of composing music as of poetry.</p>
<hr />
<p>An aside: the fact that the final words of the first and third, and second and fourth stanzas of that poem are the is a total coincidence. There is a greater degree of serendipity in art—or at least, in my art—than would boost my ego to let on. But ego-boosting be damned.</p>
fleet once more2015-09-10T13:00:00-04:002015-09-10T13:00:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2015-09-10:/2015/fleet-once-more.html<div class="line-block">Every time I step out to take a run,<br />
it seems the clouds roll back,<br />
the sun begins to shine,<br />
intensifies its radiance and heat.<br />
This makes for great discomfort, toil,<br />
as sweat rolls down my brow<br />
and heart rate climbs too quick,<br />
requires me to slow and sweat the …</div><div class="line-block">Every time I step out to take a run,<br />
it seems the clouds roll back,<br />
the sun begins to shine,<br />
intensifies its radiance and heat.<br />
This makes for great discomfort, toil,<br />
as sweat rolls down my brow<br />
and heart rate climbs too quick,<br />
requires me to slow and sweat the more.<br />
It frustrates, irritates, annoys me,<br />
that though I wish to speed,<br />
to cruise along, to glide,<br />
but quickly—not clodding in the heat.<br />
Even so, I step out the door again:<br />
someday cooler airs, or cloudy skies,<br />
or both will come, and gladly<br />
I will find my feet are fleet once more.</div>
one deer standing in a field2015-08-12T07:40:00-04:002015-08-12T07:40:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2015-08-12:/2015/one-deer-standing-in-a-field.htmlone deer standing in a field /
of crows and green turf /
startled turns to look at us /
(we are but a car) /
turns back to its grassy feast
<div class="line-block">one deer standing in a field<br />
of crows and green turf<br />
startled turns to look at us<br />
(we are but a car)<br />
turns back to its grassy feast</div>
Lines in the Mirror2015-07-31T19:37:00-04:002015-07-31T19:37:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2015-07-31:/2015/lines-in-the-mirror.htmlThe mirror begins to show me lines /
around my lips and across my brow /
but I shall not mind their steady growth /
so long as they are mostly wonder /
…
<div class="line-block">The mirror begins to show me lines<br />
around my lips and across my brow<br />
but I shall not mind their steady growth<br />
so long as they are mostly wonder<br />
with compassion mixed, and joy writ bold<br />
’til by God’s grace an agéd man<br />
I wear deep these marks of life well-lived:<br />
not scars, but prizes, fought hard and won<br />
and full of hope for others after<br />
(who may likewise four-score years do good)<br />
and bright countenance bear to that end<br />
which but another beginning be.</div>
A Leaf2015-06-17T16:23:00-04:002015-06-17T16:23:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2015-06-17:/2015/a-leaf.html<div class="line-block">I at first mistook it<br />
for a leaf<br />
Then thought No!<br />
for that must be a moth.<br />
And sure enough,<br />
as I stepped past<br />
it danced into the sky<br />
on its leafs-for-wings.</div>
<div class="line-block">I at first mistook it<br />
for a leaf<br />
Then thought No!<br />
for that must be a moth.<br />
And sure enough,<br />
as I stepped past<br />
it danced into the sky<br />
on its leafs-for-wings.</div>
To Grow Older2015-06-06T15:49:00-04:002015-06-06T15:49:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2015-06-06:/2015/to-grow-older.htmlTo grow older is not to fade / unless you make it so— /
rather, to ripen slowly into wisdom / as like an aging tree.…
<div class="line-block">To grow older is not to fade<br />
unless you make it so—<br />
rather, to ripen slowly into wisdom<br />
as like an aging tree.<br />
So let me dig deep in life’s passing<br />
with roots down by still streams,<br />
until I someday stand, hoary and kind,<br />
like an oak in winter.</div>
Easier2015-05-17T11:15:00-04:002015-05-17T11:15:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2015-05-17:/2015/easier.html’Tis easier, I confess
to speak of savor than
in truth to taste…<div class="line-block">’Tis easier, I confess,<br />
to speak of savor than<br />
in truth to taste<br />
the goodness of our Savior<br />
the sweetness of our God<br />
to call to revel than<br />
in truth to dance<br />
for joy at what he’s done<br />
for hope in what he’ll do<br />
to write of change than<br />
in truth to alter<br />
habits of thought and deed<br />
patterns of word and way</div>
<hr />
<div class="line-block">These words will not suffice—<br />
no poetry alone will change produce—<br />
yet as a reminder and a warning,<br />
rhythm and letters on a page will do,<br />
and I will strive:<br />
to savor and to taste,<br />
to revel and to dance,<br />
to alter and to change.</div>
Airship2015-04-30T06:05:00-04:002015-04-30T06:05:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2015-04-30:/2015/airship.htmlOur airship sails, / ere sunrise…<div class="line-block">Our airship sails,<br />
Ere sunrise,<br />
Above a foam-flecked sea<br />
Which gives way, sometimes<br />
To green and citied depths beneath.</div>
April Is2015-04-19T14:25:00-04:002015-04-19T14:25:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2015-04-19:/2015/april-is.htmlApril is—
blue and gray and blue and gray and…<div class="line-block">April is—<br />
blue and gray and blue and gray and<br />
darker gray and deeper blue and<br />
<br />
April is—<br />
gold and green and gold and green and<br />
richest green and brightest gold and<br />
<br />
April is—<br />
verdant, daily changing, sometimes<br />
silent, sometimes<br />
cantillating, always<br />
altering and new<br />
again.</div>
Reflection demands2015-03-28T07:40:00-04:002015-03-28T07:40:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2015-03-28:/2015/reflection-demands.htmlReflection demands / of its practitioners, like poetry / like painting, toil, dance, or ev’ry art…<div class="line-block">Reflection demands<br />
of its practitioners, like poetry,<br />
like painting, dance, or ev’ry art,<br />
pain and toil, labor and sacrifice<br />
for—<br />
mind, like limb<br />
like bow-stroke on a violin, or brush-stroke on a page<br />
is weak by nature: dull, dim, faint<br />
for—<br />
all our faculties, like autumn leaves,<br />
like ancien régime, or crumbled-down façade,<br />
are fallen, troubled, and woe’d<br />
so—<br />
loose the mind from surly bond!<br />
set intellect free by striving hard!<br />
free from ruinous decay, and<br />
free from foolish sluggery<br />
with ev’ry breath sing higher note<br />
by ev’ry step climb further up<br />
and—<br />
so deliver to the self<br />
what wisdom may be found.</div>
Speak the Truth in Beauty2015-02-11T07:00:00-05:002015-02-11T07:00:00-05:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2015-02-11:/2015/speak-the-truth-in-beauty.htmlLink—my review of Jerram Barrs' Echoes of Eden at Mere Orthodoxy.<p>This is sort of a <a href="http://mereorthodoxy.com/speak-truth-beauty-review-echoes-eden/">hybrid review and essay</a>. The review proper concludes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In short, Echoes of Eden says all the right things. Barrs has provided a healthy, sound theology of the arts, reiterating and synthesizing the helpful work of Schaeffer, Lewis, Tolkien, O’Connor, and Dostoevsky. What is more, his survey of English literature grounds that theology in concrete examples we can follow. This is a solid book.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But there was a bit more to say about this, because…</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There was one thing it lacked, though: beauty of its own. As Barrs himself says, “A book that is not well-written, no matter how compelling the story is, will not be reread multiple times” (114). I doubt I will read Echoes of Eden again, because this is true for non-fiction as well. Form matters. It may not be quite true that the way we say things is just as important as what we say—better to say the truth boringly than a lie splendidly—but it comes a close second. The truth is beautiful, and we should always aim to present it beautifully.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I think you’ll find the rest interesting! <a href="http://mereorthodoxy.com/speak-truth-beauty-review-echoes-eden/">Take a look.</a></p>
<hr />
<p>A note: I actually meant to have this reviewed about 18 months ago. I got buried in Greek III and it totally slipped my mind! Gladly, the folks at Crossway who sent me the book were understanding.</p>
I Wrote It Wrong2014-07-12T20:07:00-04:002014-07-12T20:07:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2014-07-12:/2014/i-wrote-it-wrong.htmlA few lessons I learned from a previous blog post—rhetorical effectiveness in writing is a non-trivial endeavor to say the least.<p>I wrote a <a href="http://v4.chriskrycho.com/2014/dont-be-rude.html">blog post</a> earlier, and it seems I got it wrong (see the <a href="http://v4.chriskrycho.com/2014/dont-be-rude.html#edit-and-addendum">addendum</a> at the end of the post). That is always an unpleasant experience, to say the least.</p>
<p>The one upside to this whole affair? I took away two important lessons: The first was a reminder to read others generously, even when frustrated with them—a point I spelled out a bit in my <a href="http://v4.chriskrycho.com/2014/dont-be-rude.html#edit-and-addendum">edit-and-addendum</a> to the original post. The other about the effect of certain rhetorical structures in my writing. The <em>idea</em> I had here was good (even if I may have misread the trigger for writing the post in the first place), but it was badly executed, and there were <em>structural</em> reasons for that, having to do with the weight and balance in the original piece. What follows is just me self-critiquing in public: learning about the process of writing “out loud”, as it were.</p>
<p>Though the example I am critiquing is specifically a blog post, a lot of the principles here apply equally to other media, including forms as varied as long-form essays, preaching, lecturing, and even writing fiction.</p>
<section id="my-goals" class="level4">
<h4>My Goals</h4>
<p>I meant the story I offered as an illustrative example of a broader point. To wit, I had had a bad customer experience with a given company, and it left a bad taste in my mouth that pushed me away from using that company’s software in the future. The story was meant to illustrate that even a single bad experience with a company can emotionally outweight a lot of positive experience with the company, and that emotions tend to fade slowly over time.</p>
</section>
<section id="my-approach" class="level4">
<h4>My Approach</h4>
<p>I approached the piece with a fairly typical rhetorical structure for this kind of thing: introduce a thesis or idea, detour through a specific example to illustrate it, then come back and drive the main point home. This was a good idea, but the execution failed, and it failed for fairly obvious reasons on reflection.</p>
</section>
<section id="the-problems" class="level4">
<h4>The Problems</h4>
<p>The first problem was the distribution of the content. The original piece was right around a thousand words long. Of those, some six hundred words were devoted to specific details of my interaction with the company in question. Another hundred words had to do with my follow-up decisions about the products involved. In the whole piece, then, I spent over two thirds of my time talking about the specific example, and only about a third making the actual point I wanted to make. This weighted the content so that the focus was on the details of the story, rather than the bigger picture issue that I walked away with a bad taste in my mouth from my interactions with the company’s customer service representative.</p>
<p>Second, the story itself was <em>far</em> too specific for my aims. I put in quotes from our email exchange, which entirely distracted from the point I wanted to make. It led readers to see whether they also perceived the emails as I had. While this was helpful for leading me to reevaluate the content of the emails, it also completely undercut the point of the post—a point, I should note, whose validity is entirely independent of the details of the incident I used to illustrate it. When I am illustrating a point, I need to let the illustration do the work of <em>illustrating</em>, without letting the details of the illustration come to the fore in this way. That means eliding all details but those actually essential to make the point. The story isn’t the point, nor are its details. It is there to serve the end of the thesis, and nothing more. The minute it does more than that, it needs to get out of the way.</p>
</section>
<section id="lesson-learned" class="level4">
<h4>Lesson learned</h4>
<p>Those two issues combined to shift the rhetorical effect from what I intended—a general discussion of the need to make sure you treat customers with respect—to something else entirely. Instead of making my point, the example distracted from it. I hope in the future to learn from this by doing two things:</p>
<ul>
<li>keeping the emphasis on arguing for the thesis, <em>not</em> on an illustration present only to personalize the thesis, especially by keeping the length of the illustration down.</li>
<li>keeping the details of any illustration used to the minimum essential to make the point at hand (whether illustrating the whole argument or just one part of it).</li>
</ul>
</section>
Let The Peoples Praise You2014-03-31T20:00:00-04:002014-03-31T20:00:00-04:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2014-03-31:/2014/let-the-peoples-praise-you.htmlA setting of Psalm 67 for choir, harpsichord, harp, and two guitars ("stringed instruments," as the title suggests). Alas, all digital voices, but I've attached the score as well.<p>I read Psalm 67 for my <a href="http://v4.chriskrycho.com/2014/no-resurrection-no-dice.html">devotions</a> today, and was reminded that I had set the text to music several years ago during my studies in music composition at OU. Unfortunately, I have never been able to have the piece performed (even with a piano reduction)—the position of choral director was in transition the semester I composed it, and I simply never got around to it afterward. Nonetheless, I think you may enjoy this digital version. You can, however, <a href="/downloads/psalm-67.pdf">download the score</a> so you can follow the text setting if you like.</p>
<iframe title="Let the Peoples Praise You (Psalm 67)" style="width: 100%; max-height: 6.556em; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/142432628&color=5592c9&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=false">
</iframe>
The Lamb Rampant2014-02-10T12:30:00-05:002014-02-10T12:30:00-05:00Chris Krychotag:v4.chriskrycho.com,2014-02-10:/2014/the-lamb-rampant.htmlCome and rest! Come and heal! Ev’ry traitor
Ev’ry wretch and stinking fiend: lay down your arms...<div class="line-block">Come and rest! Come and heal! Ev’ry traitor<br />
Ev’ry wretch and stinking fiend: lay down your arms<br />
Find comfort here, and respite, rest, rapport<br />
All are welcome here, not one refused, none barred<br />
<br />
She wearied, wounded, sorrowed, battle-sore<br />
Bids her children yet another weary soul embrace<br />
Offer care and proffer aid, render service to her foes<br />
As—though her progeny—once were as they<br />
<br />
Her march to war is ever triumph by defeat<br />
Her shields and banners ’blazoned not with martial sign<br />
Not lion proud nor weapons bright; instead a bleeding sheep<br />
The lamb which piercèd, bruised and bloodied, died<br />
<br />
No stranger, prouder heraldry to march beneath<br />
But under it she conquers all, so waves she bold<br />
The lamb rampant! Dancing proud on trampled death<br />
On mort laid low by low-laid, somehow mortal God<br />
<br />
Come and rest! she calls— Come and heal! Ev’ry traitor<br />
Ev’ry wretch and stinking fiend: lay down your arms<br />
Find comfort here, and respite, rest, rapport<br />
All are welcome here, not one refused, none barred<br />
Beneath the dancing banner: the piercèd, rampant lamb.</div>