Aaron Helton

Took a little time to migrate from a Hugo static site to a Writefreely site. The Hugo site was using AWS Amplify and GitHub to deploy, which meant writing code, checking it in, pushing it, waiting for deploy, etc. I figure I write enough code, and for my blogs I would rather just write. Since it was Markdown, I was able to import all of the posts I wanted to bring over, with the rest sitting in the GitHub repository still (and on my hard drive). I've fixed the dates on all of them and will slowly go through and do enough editing to fix the titles, since they all used Hugo's Markdown frontmatter, as well as whatever I can to reproduce the original formatting, some of which has been lost in the migration.

Anyway, if you have bookmarks that broke, my apologies. And if you see weird formatting and links that should lead somewhere else on the blog, but don't, just know that I am getting to them when I can.

And meanwhile, my feed URL has changed: https://www.aaronhelton.com/feed

What I'm not fixing: 1) Every dead link and embed. This is, alas, the nature of the Web. 2) Grammar and spelling errors in old posts. They've been there that long.

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I haven't posted one of these in a while, in part because my reading over the past several years had been too sporadic. For 2024, I didn't specifically plan out much, except for some time I was following along with the the reading schedule (delayed!) of Shelved By Genre, specifically as they read through Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series. Nevertheless, I managed more than I thought I would, and certainly more than I had in previous years, even if some of the reading was very slow. Anyway here's what I read.

1. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
2. Whale by Cheon Myong-kwan, translated by Chi-Young Kim
3. The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin
4. (Abandoned) En Agosto Nos Vemos by Gabriel García Márquez
5. The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin
6. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
7. Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock
8. Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
9. (Abandoned) Gloriana, or, The unfulfill'd queen : being a romance by Michael Moorcock
10. The Last Pomegranate Tree by Bachtyar Ali, translated by Kareem Abdulrahman
11. Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson
12. Diplomatics: The Science of Reading Medieval Documents – A Handbook by Federico Gallo

I have sort of resolved to read down my pile of Archipelago Books, and am looking at a few standouts published in 2024. I also have in mind to read a bit more nonfiction, which I had almost completely abandoned. As usual, however, we'll see.

#reading #books

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#ai #technology #politics

It is important, even vital, for the principled technocrats and technologists to maintain their skepticism in the face of the growing “AI” threat, even to the point being and acting as the opposition. And yet we are losing. We probably will lose. “AI” is the populist demagogue of technology, singing a siren song of promises to fix what's broken. And people are listening.

We imagine ourselves, perhaps, as treading in the bloody footprints of Ned Ludd, ready at a moment's notice to smash these new looms that weave “information” from the pilfered fibers of the Internet. We smugly point out that the Luddites were right to fear the fruits of automation, and right to stand against them. But we can be right and still find ourselves in a rearguard battle as a hydra of misinformation closes off any hope of escape.

Unlike the Luddites, however, we have put ourselves here, because as technocrats and technologists, we have failed our users. What they want are tools to make their lives easier, to help them process increasing workloads efficiently, ultimately to better serve their users, as they imagine it. We have, of course, endeavored to deliver these tools, and we've developed ever more baroque and at times ideological rituals in our quest to deliver them. Through our mantras of user stories and agile development (that usually isn't agile at all), and our adherence to the the false religions of project management and performance management, we've anesthetized ourselves into gating off useful technologies.

And our users? They are discovering that ready access to “AI”, at least in its current LLM incarnation, a planet-devouring Ouroboros with a silver tongue and a penchant for just making shit up, offers a way past the wizened gates of the tehcnologists and technocrats, who are busy salting runes on the floors of their offices in the hopes of staving off project failure.

Users are voting. They will seek out and use these tools, which they know to be deeply flawed and probably dangerous, because these flawed and dangerous tools possess a different set of flaws and dangers from those of the technology gatekeepers. We've told them in the past that change is good, that change is inevitable, and that change means progress. Or some of us have, anyway, and our users have internalized this message. They will seize these tools and attempt to beat us at our own game. Since there are more of them than there are of us, they will likely succeed, if not on quality, then on strength of numbers alone.

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tags: #reading #books #readinglist #epics

Since mid-March, my reading schedule is provisional and inconsistent. Like many others, I am working from home, which has wreaked havoc on any sense of routine, even though I do my best to cling to what I can. Still, while I am confident that much of my original reading plan will stay firmly off the rails, there is no reason to abandon hope.

Often, I make plans but lose interest in them anyway. There's no guarantee I would have been in a different place in the absence of a global pandemic, because I am also an opportunistic reader who grabs an idea and runs with it until I find something that interests me more. Here's what I have been reading this year to date.

Completed

• Popol Vuh by Anonymous, translated by Dennis Tedlock. Excellent, enjoyable stories that elicit anger specifically because of how little survived the Spanish conquest.
• The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie, which I picked up after having mailed a copy to my Reddit Secret Santa giftee. I will happily continue reading in this series.
• Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture by Johan Huizinga. The best that can be said for this is that it's reactionary fanfic for white supremacists masquerading as scholarship.
• The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley. This modern recapitulation of Beowulf tells the story mostly (but not completely!) from Grendel's mother's point of view and served as a precursor to Headley's forthcoming translation of the original tale, due in August and slated for my September epic. I've preordered it from my local bookshop in hopes that a) they are in a safe position to fill the order, and b) it releases and distributes on time.
• Victor LaValle's Destroyer by Victor LaValle. Not a retelling so much as a fast-forward from the point after Frankenstein's monster disappears into the Arctic.
• The Tale of Sinuhe: And Other Ancient Egyptian Poems 1940-1640 B.C. by Unknown, translated by R.B. Parkinson. The main tale and some of the secondary tales are worth reading, but the fragmentary nature of some of the later works makes them difficult as anything but a completionist study.

Currently Reading

• Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace by Janet H. Murray. I haven't given up completely on game studies curriculum, but I don't seem to have much attention span for it at the moment either. For what it's worth, my podcasts are piling up for lack of commute time.
• The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I have several friends who rate this title as their favorite of Dostoyevsky's works. I can't compare yet, because I've only read Crime and Punishment and Demons.
• War Songs by Antarah ibn Shaddad. Even as a fan of epics, I find these poems by a celebrated pre-Islamic Arab poet and warrior to be much more violent than I expected. They do, however, provide a window into a time and place that are less familiar to me, which is why I chose the work.

Always Reading

• The Complete Poems by William Blake. I will never not be reading this. Blake is the mystical poet we need now, and I have every intention of reading all of his prophetic works, probably more than once.

Upcoming

Though provisional, I am still planning to make a go of the following over the next month or so:

The Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot and Keith Bosley (translator). This is the great Finnish epic that grew out of its oral tradition.

What Fell Off the List

• Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds by Jesper Juul
• Ready Player Two: Women Gamers and Designed Identity by Shira Chess

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tags: #reading #books #readinglist #epics #gamestudies

2019 was not a banner year for me in reading, a fact I blame on the lack of a reading list. I've come to realize that I need a some means of guiding my reading for the year, especially if I have a particular theme or set of themes I am exploring.

In keeping with earlier themes, I am returning in 2020 to epics, one a month if I can read that fast. To the extent possible, I am either steering clear of Western canon or approaching it from a different point of view. For instance, I plan to read feminist takes on both Beowulf and The Odyssey this year. In addition to epics, I am also planning to read one notable work in the field of game studies each month, basically using the Game Studies Study Buddies podcast as a curriculum. I may or may not have things to say about any of these as the year progresses, but what I do have to say I will publish on this site.

I have a number of works on prior lists I hope to use as supplemental reading, but I may post that list later as an addendum. I am in no particular hurry to organize it.

Let's build a reading list, shall we?

December 2019

For the rest of this month, I plan to read Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture by Alexander R. Galloway. This is a set of essays exploring the video game as an independent medium and distinct cultural form. This book, as well as Homo Ludens below, was a gift from my Reddit Secret Santa, and happens to be short enough that I'll be able to read it within the next couple of weeks as the year winds down.

January 2020

Epic

Popol Vuh: The Definitive Edition of The Mayan Book of The Dawn of Life and The Glories of Gods and Kings, translated by Dennis Tedlock

This is the Quiché Mayan book of creation, detailing the deeds of the Mayan gods and the rise of the Quiché kingdom in the Guatemalan highlands. It is one of the most important surviving pre-Columbian texts we have available.

Game Studies

Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture by Johan Huizinga

Something of a classic in the game studies curriculum, this seminal work provides an evaluation of play as a central activity of flourishing cultures.

Fevral

(Note: Unless absolutely required, I will never after this point type February.)

Epic

The Tale of Sinuhe: and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems 1940-1640 B.C. (Oxford World's Classics), translated by R.B. Parkinson

This collection of poems offers English speaking readers a glimps into the golden age of Egyption fictional literature.

Game Studies

Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace by Janet H. Murray

The updated version of this book offers commentary on the original, explaining what panned out and what didn't. The book created instant controversy upon its publication in 1997, but she also made some interesting predictions along the way.

March

Epic

Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali (Revised Edition) by D T Niane

This is a work of oral tradition pinned down and captured in text. True, it was never intended to be transmitted this way, but this story, part history, part legend, tells of how Sundiata united the twelve kingdoms of Mali and built an empire.

Game Studies

Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds, by Jesper Juul

Juul studies the tension between rules and fiction in video games, and examines the role computers play in mediating this tension.

April

Epic

War Songs, by Antarah ibn Shaddad and James E. Montgomery (translator)

Writing from the 6th century Najd highlands of the Arabian peninsula, the warrior-poet recounts his struggles for recognition. These poems are attributed to Antarah ibn Shaddad, the subject of a later epic, The Epic of 'Antar.

Game Studies

Ready Player Two: Women Gamers and Designed Identity, by Shira Chess

Chess examines the implicit assumptions game designers and developers make about women as an audience for gaming, especially how they reinforce normative ideas about women.

May

Epic

The Kalevala: An Epic Poem after Oral Tradition, assembled by Elias Lönnrot and translated by Keith Bosley

This is the national folk epic of Finland, and grew out of its oral traditions, preserved well into the 19th century.

Game Studies

Games of Empire, by Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter

What is the role of video games in the media of Empire, and what is the impact of this role on creators and players?

June

Epic

Florante y Laura (Spanish Edition), by Francisco Baltazar

This Spanish edition of a Filipino romance is an epic poem about the love and determination of the Duke Florante and the Princess Laura of Albania while being pursued by the usurper Count Adolfo.

Game Studies

The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop, by Kyra D. Gaunt

This work illustrates how black musical styles are incorporated into the earlies games African American girls learn.

July

Epic

The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser

Arthurian romance cum Italian renaissance epic recounting the quests of each of various knights to achieve a virtue.

Game Studies

Man, Play and Games, by Roger Caillois

This is a study of what games are, and what their place in our lives is.

August

Epic

The Odyssey, by Homer, Emily Wilson (translator)

The club consisting of translators of The Odyssey in to English gained its first female member when Emily Wilson published this authoritative translation in 2017.

Game Studies

Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature, by Espen J. Aarseth

Central to this text are questions of whether computer games make great literature, and whether video games are supplanting other narrative forms, or eliminating pure narrative entirely.

September

Epic

Beowulf: A New Translation, by Maria Dahvana Headley

Release date: August 25, 2020. This is a new, feminist translation of the beloved work, the earliest in the English language.

Game Studies

Playing with Feelings: Video Games and Affect, by Aubrey Anable

What is the role of video games in our larger emotional landscape?

October

Epic

Epic of the Forgotten: Bulgarian-English Dual Language Text, by Ivan Vazov, Mark J Ripkowski

Vazov wrote this to commemorate the Bulgarian fight for freedom against the Ottoman Empire, and to criticize the decline of the Bulgarian nation after the Liberation.

Game Studies

Beyond a Boundary: 50th Anniversary Edition, by C. L. R. James

A classic work of sport and culture through the lens of cricket. (It's a departure from the other kinds of games explored above.)

November

Epic

The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights: Volume 1, by Anonymous, Robert Irwin

Timeless and unforgettable tales within tales woven by the incomparable Shahrazad as she seeks to prolong her life each night. This work encompasses three volumes.

Game Studies

Gaming the Stage: Playable Media and the Rise of English Commercial Theater, by Gina Bloom

On the traditoinal theatrical concepts in gaming.

December

Epic

The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights: Volume 2, by Anonymous, Robert Irwin

Game Studies

Literary Gaming, by Astrid Ensslin

An examination of literary videogames, or the literary-ludic spectrum.

(pause for breath...)

You may notice that I have left off at 2/3 of the 3 volume set of The Arabian Nights, which you can take to mean that this list ultimately carries me into January 2021 unless I get to it sooner. I will readjust this list as necessary, pointing you to the changelog if you're interested, because I assume I will read some things faster and some things slower, and I would prefer to keep trucking instead of merely waiting for the end of the month. Beyond the end of this current list, I have a tentative schedule worked out for 2021, believe it or not. At that point I plan to turn to some classical Chinese literature, starting with The Journey to the West and proceeding with The Story of the Stone, or The Dream of the Red Chamber. The timing and contents of the 2021 list will undoubtedly evolve as I make faster or slower progress on the 2020 list, which is not arranged to optimize page count. There are short books and long books on this list.

One other thing I should note is that, while I am confident in the idea of reading in and around game studies, I have no idea if I will be able to sustain this much interest in the topic for the whole year, or if this particular set of books will be the ultimate list. As I post changelogs to this page, you can follow along with the evolution of this list. In case I abandon the game studies reading list entirely, I will begin supplementing with some prior lists, still TBD.

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tags: #roundups #media #music #books #podcasts

A roundup of my media consumption for the year.

Music

I come at music like this: I try lots of things, but take note of little. What rises to the top for me isn’t necessarily what others find great (and in fact I can’t always see the greatness others see), but rather something, usually idiosyncratic, that helps the artist stand out. That’s not to say I am completely ignorant of things like airplay and promotional hype, nor do I fully reject those aspects of an artist's trajectory, but I don't necessarily march to the same beat. Anyway, here's what I found worth my time this year.

My Apple Music playlist of the following is here: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/2019-top-music/pl.u-MDAWWqNI40l5e0

1. J.S. Ondara – Tales of America: Spare but rich and commanding bluesy acoustic songs offering a newcomer’s take on America’s promise. Ondara, an immigrant from Nairobi, is definitely one to watch.
2. Michael Kiwanuka – Kiwanuka: On his third album, Michael Kiwanuka narrates a world of violence and racism through pensive, melancholy psych-soul melodies.
3. Heilung – Futha: Otherworldly neofolk chants that attempt to amplify a particular history, that of pre-Christian Nothern Europe and, like Skald below, a welcome counterpoint to generic metal acts in Viking cosplay.
4. Zao – Reformat / Reboot: This remix compilation of the venerable metalcore gestalt that is Zao was notable not just for the electronic touches the remix infuses, but also because, inexplicably, there is (or was) a NES cartridge version of the album available. This gimmick is not a detractor: the music is genuinely enjoyable even though I’m something of a metalcore outsider.
5. Chris Forsyth – All Time Present: This mostly instrumental album showcases Forsyth’s exceptional skill with the guitar as he and his backing band take us on an extensive journey through experimental classic rock riffs.
6. Billie Eilish – When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?: I’m not sure what needs to be said about this. If you somehow missed the incredible buzz around Eilish’s debut album, let me encourage you to give her a first look.
7. SKÁLD – Vikings Chant: Skald want to answer the question of whether and to what extent a French musical act can revive the ancient Viking poetic traditions. In large part, the answer is yes.
8. Dream Theater – Distance Over Time: The unquestioned prog-metal kings are back with an album that is solidly in their wheelhouse, showing that they still have staying power while also not quite meeting the stratospheric bar they’ve set in the process.
9. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Ghosteen: Ghosteen is Nick Cave’s first full reckoning of the grief of a lost child. It is a deeply personal collection of impressions and haunting melodies born of finding oneself engulfed in a darkness for which no preparation would have been sufficient.
10. Sleep Token – Sundowning: This long awaited debut album is an idiosyncratic collection of pop metal worship ballads by an anonymous group. What they’ve built in the lead up to this album is a successful marketing and promotion machine that happens to produce great music.
11. Vampire Weekend – Father of the Bride: It’s been a while since this group has released anything, and the intervening years, lineup changes and a cross-country move all add up to a different band than the one that emerged in 2008. Class consciousness infuses this album of anthems, folksy ballads, spirituals, and catchy pop country tunes. Is it the mark of maturation?
12. Mdou Moctar – Ilana (The Creator): High energy spontaneous and celebratory Tuareg guitar from Niger, this album is full of desert assouf – that elusive term that evokes loneliness, longing, nostalgia, and everything that lies beyond the comfort of the campfire.
    

Books

Okay, well, look. 2019 was not a banner year for me and books. I never really developed much of a reading plan, which even if I don’t always follow it, it is still something to guide me. Anyway, that’s not to say I read nothing, just that I lost a lot of steam this year. I read 13 books, but had set my goal at 25. Some of the reason I got nowhere near my goal is that I picked up a couple of very lengthy books, one of which I finished and the other of which may be a near-perennial almost-read.

I started the year off with a book that I had kicking around a while, Natsume Soseki’s The Three-Cornered World, which was a gift from a friend in 2017 or 2018. It is the curse of the avid reader to have more books to read than time to read them, which underscores the surprise of actually getting to a book that's been on one's shelves for a while.

A timely event at the Korea Society prompted me to read Heinz Insu Finkl's new translation of The Nine Cloud Dream, which was a nice follow-on to the previous work.

Theater screenings of a number of Studio Ghibli films was the impetus behind my read this year of Diana Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle. The book was as compelling as the film, but I think I prefer Miyazaki.

Back in January, the New York Times published Globetrotting, a sneak preview of books coming out in 2019 from around the world. So I took on a few. The first of these was All My Goodbyes by Mariana Dimópoulos, followed by Guillermo Saccomanno's 77 and Adèle by Leila Slimani.

When I cleaned up my Twitter account a while back, I stopped following all the corporate accounts I had accumulated, ditched anyone who looked like a Nazi, and otherwise gave my account a thorough scrub. What I found is that I have a soft spot for authors, especially authors I've read and like, so as a consequence, I follow more authors than perhaps any other category of people. The result of this, of course, is that I hear about other authors, so when Hafsah Faizal came across my radar with We Hunt the Flame, the first book in her Sands of Arawiya trilogy, I was instantly intrigued and pre-ordered it. I eagerly await the next installments.

Two more works out of the pages of the New York Times Book Review grabbed me over the summer: Thomas Harris, who is apparently a Big Deal, released Cari Mora, which was entertaining enough, and I also read Erica Ferencik's Into the Jungle, which was also worth the time.

Coming back around to things I have long overlooked but regret having done so, I picked up Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed. It was good. Really good. And it saddens me that there is not so much more fantasy set against non-European backdrops and inspirations.

Did I mention that I mined my own shelves for reading material? Two other books I picked up this year have been on my shelves for a while, and I finally got around to them. The first of these was The Princess Bride by William Goldman. Look, I've seen the movie enough times that I could probably, with some time and thought, reproduce the dialogue line by line pretty accurately. The book is so much deeper, and it opens windows into character motivation that would have strengthened the movie. I don't want to spoil it, but you should read it. The second of these was The Stand by Stephen King. I started reading this book as a teenager, but had to put it down (though not out of lack of interest), and I never got back around to it. The copy I have now was gifted to me by a Reddit secret Santa. Of all the works I've read this year, this is the only one I have even tried to write a review of (which I guess I better get back to).

The final read of the year, though it was actually wedged between the previous two, was one that my 13 year old was assigned as summer reading before starting 8th grade. Ann Rinaldi's Numbering All the Bones is a historical novel about one girl's attempts to heal the trauma of the American Civil War.

Podcasts

I wish I could find good statistics on the hours and hours I've spent listening to podcasts this year, but I don't see them. In any case, my podcast habit is what gets me to and from work, and sometimes fills other idle times, especially long dog walks. Instead of simply listing out all the individual podcasts I listen to, I will offer a list of my current favorites.

1. Druidcast
   Frequency: Monthly on our around the 20th.
   From their website:
   > ...each episode features poetry, story and song offered by Bards throughout the world. There are also interviews with people involved in the Druid tradition, and related areas, plus seasonal thoughts, explorations of Celtic mythology and history, reviews, and competitions.

2. In Our Time
   Frequency: Weekly
   Description: Wide ranging podcast produced by BBC Radio, exploring the history of various ideas, people, places, literary works, etc.

3. Game Studies Study Buddies
   Frequency: Monthly or so.
   From the website:
   > Games Studies Study Buddies is a podcast that makes academic games studies accessible, text by text. Rather than focusing on following or forging a “canon” of the discipline, media scholar Cameron and literature scholar Michael instead aim to cover an eclectic body of material. And while we are centrally focused on contemporary videogames, you can expect our discussions (and the work we cover) to account for everything from Dungeons & Dragons to tic-tac-toe.

4. Death By Monsters
   Frequency: Weekly
   From the website:
   > Death by Monsters is a weekly podcast with Matthew Jude, Nick Murphy and Paula Deming, three friends with very different opinions on monsters, mysteries and the unknown.

5. The Dream
   Frequency: Biweekly?
   Description: Produced for Stitcher, this seasonal series examines various industries. Season 1 examined MLMs, and Season 2 look like it's focused on Wellness. I'm about to bump this to the top of my list.

I listen to a number of other podcasts as well, but these are the ones I wanted to share for this year.

What's up for next year?

One thing I learned from this year is that a reading list goes a long way, so I will put one up soon, and I'm pleased to say that I will be returning to epics for another round of that sweet sweet mythology. If you've followed my reading journeys before, then you will have done so on different websites. For a variety of reasons, I am consolidating all of those posts and all future posts here, in a place that I own and control. So that's another way of saying to watch this space for more details.

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