(no subject)

[avevale_intelligencer]

Part of the Myst story, which as you know Bob involves the Writing of books that contain worlds (Ages), involves a character named Gehn. He was the father of Atrus and the son of Aitrus (confused? you will be) and his education in the Art of Writing was cut short by the collapse of the D'ni civilisation and the death of just about everybody who might have taught him, but being a can-do type he went away and taught himself. When he came back and fetched his son to teach him, Atrus was horrified to discover that Gehn's idea of Writing an Age was to go through other people's Ages, extract the bits he thought looked interesting and cobble them together. (This used to be a perfectly acceptable way of writing poetry, the result being called a "cento," from a Latin word for a cloak made of patches.)

The resultant Ages, to which Gehn gave numbers rather than names, were often unstable, though not always, but Gehn believed he had mastered all there was to know about Age Writing and that Atrus' through-composed efforts were wasteful and over-elaborate. He also thought his having Written the Age gave him the right to play god to its people and deal with them as he saw fit...

I don't know what made me think of that.

Anyone feel like trying their hand at a cento? I may do one later on.

Back to work. Here, Dyson Dyson Dyson...heeere boy...