q & a: 1
on an every-night-for-the-rest-of-your-life basis, would you rather have moderate nightmares or searing dreams of perfect happiness?
Ouch, those searing dreams sound physically addictive; I would want to do nothing but sleep, and I'm too close to that situation as is. At least I might get some weird poems or something out of the moderate nightmares. And if they contained enough common elements, perhaps in time I could learn to recognize them and lucid-dream my way through them. I was pretty good at that for a while in high school.
who's your daddy? and what does he do?
The man is right here: as I understand it, his current research involves cavity resonances, in which the air in an enclosed space will start to oscillate in a spring-like pattern. Sometimes the oscillation will decrease over time, sometimes increase, and he's trying to figure out how and why. It creates a noise similar to when you're on the freeway with your window partially rolled down and the air starts going whomp whomp whomp. Not the same phenomenon, but in the same family.
Did You Bring It?
If you think I would take It out on the road with the political situation being what it is, you're a madman! For now I've buried It beneath the grass in the courtyard, with a few air holes so It can breathe, and if It doesn't rust I'll bring It after the election.
What role did Chanson de Roland play in the deification of Charlemagne in France?
The most significant effect of Chanson de Roland was to allow me to write a novel titled (perhaps unwisely) Song of Roland, which the Industry would not touch. Aside from that, as you probably know, the Chanson was written around the time of the First Crusade and conveniently turns a rather snarled historical event (Charlemagne's invasion of Spain) into a Christian v. pagan dichotomy. The enemy becomes the Mohammedeans rather than the Basques, and while the historical Roland was a Breton, in the poem he becomes a true-blue Frank. I mean, the archangel Gabriel shows up at the end and tells Charlemagne that now he has to go fight some other Mohammedeans at Imphe. The poem is a chanson de geste, which can mean either "song of heroic deeds" or "song of a race/people." Basically it's consolidating French national identity through Moor-whupping. And Charlemagne is the divinely directed whupper.
