The Joy of Arvo Pärt

I’m not a professional music critic. I don’t have any credentials, no particular knowledge of the methods and practices of musicians, and little more than a devoted layman’s familiarity with schools of music. However, I do listen to a fairly broad range of eclectic musical selections, and there is precisely one modern Classical-styled composer who I would peg as a certain shoe-in for greatness that will last for generations.

That composer is Arvo Pärt.

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Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules Chapter 1: Stand Up Straight With Your Shoulders Back

I’ve been hearing a lot about Jordan Peterson recently; he’s been the face of a couple political controversies and also a psychologist with a focus on studying archetypes, so there’s a little bit of overlap there that makes me interested in him. When I was reading Jeffrey Tucker’s A Beautiful Anarchy (Amazon affiliate link), one of the things that Tucker pointed out is that to really read a book and gain its full benefits you need to take a moment to write about what you have read, so I will attempt to do the same with Jordan Peterson’s book, since I am inevitably drawn to figure out what the fuss is about.

If you just want to hear what I have to say about the book in general, I’ll probably write a review of the book once I’m done. I’m actually as much interested in his Maps of Meaning, since I love anything about archetypes, but I’m a little stingy to spend $50 on a book.

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Managing the Workload

I’ve been really bad about doing anything resembling a sane workload in the past, so I’ve been working on improving my schedule and getting stuff done. Right now I’m working full-time and trying to get everything booted up, so there are a few things that I’m doing to really keep disciplined and get writing done.

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Why Star Wars is Still Good

Yeah, so I’m going to try to write more stuff up here this year. Show that I’m alive. Since I got loreshapers.net up and going, this is back to being well and truly just my personal blog, and I’m also working past my “write something formal” stage and (hopefully) coming out of my shell as a better, more flexible writer.

Today’s topic: Star Wars, and particularly the Last Jedi. Spoilers ahead.

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The Cycle

I’ve been really awful at updating this blog, and I think it’s because I insist on doing articles. I’m still probably going to finish up Breathing Life at some point, because I have a fair amount of stuff written for it already (and I’ve had a lot more drafted and planned, awaiting me having more free time).

Some of it’s because I keep starting new projects.

The most recent is velotha’s flock, a free-verse game about were-ravens caught in a struggle between God and the devil. Bit of a niche audience, but it draws me to an important point: the cycle of literary characters.

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