Thursday, October 8

Today is Thursday of Week 7. Here is a link to Week 7. I hope you will have fun getting into the storytelling spirit again this week!

Class Procedures and Reminders

Election Day Holiday. The university sent around a reminder that this Fall, instead of the Texas Game Day holiday, there will be an Election Day holiday instead. Election Day is on Tuesday, November 3, which is Week 11. That seems far away but also very close! So, I went ahead and marked credit for the Week 11 Tuesday reading for everybody in Canvas; I wanted to mark it now in case some people are working ahead. (A few of you had already done Week 11 Tuesday reading, so for you I marked it as Week 11 extra credit reading.)

Project Stack. If you turned in something by 6PM on Sunday, you should have comments back from me, and you can check the stack to make sure I received your assignment. I'll get through as much of the stack as I can today, and then finish up on Friday. (The projects are looking so good!)

Storytelling. It's another storytelling week this week, so there will be lots of stories today in the blog stream. You can watch the stories going up if you are curious (that's a blog stream which just shows story posts). I hope you are feeling more confident with all that, story by story. Maybe you will even want to try some totally different kind of style or approach this week! Think back to other people's stories you've read earlier this semester and some new idea might come to mind.

The following items are for fun and exploration:

Blog stream. Jaicee's already doing the review week posts for Week 8, and I thought this picture was such a fun progress illustration: Jaicee's Dolly trying to eat her tail.

Twitter stream. And something very cool from the British Library: an art form called nari-kunjara, an elephant (kunjara) made of women (nari):

And a fun tweet from Indian writer Sharanya Manivannan: 

And here's a video about an upcoming book on the subject of alchemy, which is one of the most important intersections of science and art in the European tradition: The Experimental Fire.

Jennifer Rampling's "The Experimental Fire: Inventing English Alchemy, 1300-1700" is out soon, and @UChicagoPress have updated their website with its stunning cover: https://t.co/VBDld2AlGc.

In this video Jenny explains what the book is all about:https://t.co/6d6b3Vvijc

— Seb Falk ~ "THE LIGHT AGES" is out now! (@Seb_Falk) October 7, 2020

Storybook. Alchemy shows up in the magic and science of Hogwarts, and here's a Hogwarts-inspired Storybook: The Mystical Horses of Hogwarts.

100-Word Stories. And a story about a horse who learns a hard lesson in Aesop: The Horse and the Donkey's Load.

Laura Gibbs · 19. The Horse and the Donkey's Load

And here is some advice about writing, and about life in general: Don't give up in the middle.

Any day when you are writing is a good writing day!

This Crash Course video might give you some writing ideas, looking for heroes and their journeys: 

October 8: Frank Herbert. Today marks the 100th birthday of the science fiction writer Frank Herbert in 1920 (Herbert died in 1986). His novel, Dune, published in 1965, is one of the most popular science fiction novels ever written. Below is a cover for one of the paperback editions of Dune, showing one of the mighty sandworms!

And here is a Frank Herbert interview:

Check out the Twitter stream for information and fun stuff during the day, or click here for past announcements.