I knew it!
30 November 2009 01:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fridgepunk
Doing research for... not a story seed, because it's an old story seed, more a story sprouting - mind strayed back onto that old seed, examined it from a weird angle and *poof* the seedling produced its first shoot and has hooked me.
The downside to this is that I am having to delve into translations of the f-ing mishnah, and generally speaking the first sign that a story seed has a high chance of turning horribly wrong at the slightest probability is when holy texts of a major world religion end up as necessary research material AND I have to rely on translations of that text to do research for it without enough knowledge about the originating language to get the nuances that translations tend to mess up somewhere along the way.
HOWEVER, working off of the Chabad library translations of the Pirkei Avot (chapter 5) I found this little paragraph:
(emphasis mine)
OHAI U GAIS, AYN RAND IS A SODOMITE ...according to the Pirkei Avot.
This is what I'm talking about when I mention not getting the nuances that translations cover up - I have absolutely no idea what the hell "sodomite" really entails in this context, and to make it worse the way the Pirkei Avot is structured there's no citation or a title or name of any kind I can follow to try and dig and find out when or where I could find more stuff out about the culture that gave rise to that specific usage of the term sodomite, and so figure out why the hell rabbinical jewish theology thinks that it really important to know that libertarianism is a synonym for buggery-tarian. *sigh*
WHY ARE MY PLOT BUNNIES NEVER SIMPLY "what if we did a western in space, and like in a regular western we erase the presence of asian people from the setting?"!? I swear, if its not the tupping Mishnah its proust or kant or some such bloviating fool who happened to have a single idea I kind of want to learn a bit more about AND I AM SUDDENLY HAVING TROUBLE BREATHING DUE TO THE WEIGHT OF LIBRARY BOOKS THAT ARE RESTING ON MY CHEST BECAUSE I HAVE RUN OUT OF ROOM ON EVERY OTHER AVAILABLE SURFACE. bah.
The downside to this is that I am having to delve into translations of the f-ing mishnah, and generally speaking the first sign that a story seed has a high chance of turning horribly wrong at the slightest probability is when holy texts of a major world religion end up as necessary research material AND I have to rely on translations of that text to do research for it without enough knowledge about the originating language to get the nuances that translations tend to mess up somewhere along the way.
HOWEVER, working off of the Chabad library translations of the Pirkei Avot (chapter 5) I found this little paragraph:
10. There are four types of people: One who says, "What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine" is a boor. One who says "What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours" -- this is a median characteristic; others say that this is the character of a Sodomite. One who says, "What is mine is yours, and what is yours is yours" is a chassid (pious person). And one who says "What is mine is mine, and what is yours is mine" is wicked.
(emphasis mine)
OHAI U GAIS, AYN RAND IS A SODOMITE ...according to the Pirkei Avot.
This is what I'm talking about when I mention not getting the nuances that translations cover up - I have absolutely no idea what the hell "sodomite" really entails in this context, and to make it worse the way the Pirkei Avot is structured there's no citation or a title or name of any kind I can follow to try and dig and find out when or where I could find more stuff out about the culture that gave rise to that specific usage of the term sodomite, and so figure out why the hell rabbinical jewish theology thinks that it really important to know that libertarianism is a synonym for buggery-tarian. *sigh*
WHY ARE MY PLOT BUNNIES NEVER SIMPLY "what if we did a western in space, and like in a regular western we erase the presence of asian people from the setting?"!? I swear, if its not the tupping Mishnah its proust or kant or some such bloviating fool who happened to have a single idea I kind of want to learn a bit more about AND I AM SUDDENLY HAVING TROUBLE BREATHING DUE TO THE WEIGHT OF LIBRARY BOOKS THAT ARE RESTING ON MY CHEST BECAUSE I HAVE RUN OUT OF ROOM ON EVERY OTHER AVAILABLE SURFACE. bah.
