Naked and oblivious,
They go above my worries.
Impressive and thunderous,
They go beyond my loneliness.
Bathed in light,
Surmounted by divine.
Not the one of order,
The one of a moment.
It's a matter of regard,
Time and sight towards the sky.
Blog
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Gold and blue
Photo by Summer Stock on Pexels.com -
Me
Photo by egil sjøholt on Pexels.com Igualmente, para explicar de un modo satisfactorio a sus ojos lo que mantiene las entidades cósmicas y los fenómenos de la historia de la civilización, una vez creados, en marcha continua y armoniosa, sin conflicto ni confusión, los «metafísicos» sumerios expusieron otra idea. Esta idea se expresa por la palabra sumeria me, cuyo sentido exacto es todavía incierto. De una manera general, esta palabra parece designar un conjunto de reglas y directrices que forman parte de las cosas de un modo, como si dijéramos, intrínseco a ellas, y que habrían sido asignadas a cada una de ellas por los «dioses creadores» con el objeto de mantenerlas en existencia y en actividad, eternamente, según los planes divinos.
La historia empieza en Sumer. La primera cosmogonía. Noah Kramer. -
McGuffin go fetch my plot slippers
Photo by Ekaterina Klimentovich on Pexels.com Though nobody knows where, there’s a stone fountain in Taeguksa temple. It jumps and bird sings from the carved mouth of a marble lion turtle. Some say it will taste wine or beer in a solstice day. Some others would state it cures anything. Star eyed professor Bae Woo Jin discovered a sewn bound claiming it would turn immortal anyone who drank it. I, foolishly in love, I have decided to grab my suitcase and follow the gentleman.
MCGUFFINS AND PISTOLS
Right. The McGuffins and pistols on scene, ain’t slippers. They’re more like pumps. Once you believed you had them under your toes, you go get yourself in a rocky pavement and get your façade smashed against ground.
From the opening little tale, I can’t, anymore, discern which is the McGuffin. The professor? The fountain? And… I’m running to fast since I have to start with the most trascendental of the questions:
WHAT IS A MCGUFFIN?
McGuffins are unimportant objects (or beings)…. Or so said Hitchcock. They are the object ( fountain of the immortality)/ being (professor Bae) which motivates the main character into the chase. We won’t really care about the fountain if professor Bae is to end up death and little damsel in distress has to free herself from these sectarian guys who hold said fountain in their keep. Neither we will care about professor Bae if he turns tails on the first bonny face once in Taeguksa…
Indeed, George Lucas1 is of the opposite opinion. For him, we have to care for Yoda when Luke goes to bring him to the resistance. Yoda does matter. The McGuffin is important.
So… What is a McGuffin? Really.
THE OBJECT IS THE WISH
A MCGUFFIN IS THE STARTING GUN SHOOT. Important or not important,they come about at some point in the beginning of the plot and represent the desire. They can completely disappear to reappear in the climax. They can cause a city to be put inside out. Or they can become a totem hero object.
A magic sword, phoenix tear, death’s hollow, Maltese falcon. This objects are the justified desire of the character. Either a main or a secondary character. Remember, no character is secondary to their selves. They will always believe themselves the most important the same way we do.
For Maltese gilded falcons will have the detective chasing the falcon through all San Francisco city until the damn gizmo isn’t to be a useless damn, for the detective has fallen in love with the girl.
WHAT ABOUT MAGIC?
Magic can be a McGuffin. It can be an important one or an unimportant one.
In case of importance… Magical systems are developed. And in such cases I’ll need a tutorial to learn about mana, HP and point deduction… Yes, I have no idea about that kind of stuff.
Enjoy your McGuffins. Pasto Kalo.- Read in the Wikipedia in the McGuffin article. And since the Wikipedia is in responsible hands… I want to think. I’ll take it as a said of hearsay and therefore, a good story to be used. ↩︎
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Lagartija
El sol ilumina una mancha.
Un trozo de corteza,
Una raíz.
Las sombras de las hojas se mecen.
Atentas.
Una cabeza,
La mancha tiene patas.
Salta.
Entre los huecos,
Y la cola es el último pedacito visible.
El sol iluminaba una mancha.
Photo by Valeriia Miller on Pexels.com -
Cuentos sobre la justicia del gobernante
Photo by Sora Shimazaki on Pexels.com —¡Excelente! Doy por supuesto que las relaciones entre Dosflores y tú son ya muy buenas. Un buen comienzo. Cuando vuelva sano y salvo a su tierra, comprobarás que no soy desagradecido. Quizá incluso olvide los cargos presentados contra ti. Gracias, Rincewind. Puedes marcharte.
Vetinari, Patricio de Ankh-Morpork. La luz fantástica. Terry Prattchet. -
Marketing’s magic
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Eh…and before you go on reading this, let’s make it clear I won’t talk inspiring selling know hows. I won’t either tell you the secret on how to sell your book to any publishers1.
MAGIC AND DEMOCRACY
Whilst democracy is what we call our way to make everybody the same, we still believe in magic. Or, at least, spend a very joyous escape pretending magic does exist…
And magical is a category in which not everybody belongs. Who is able to manipulate the elements (proved non existent and I mean water, fire, air and earth not the 100 ~ in the periodic table and of which water is just a combination of oxygen and hydrogen) and who is able to foretell the future? Only those who are special. The worthy, the evil or the different. Not just anyone.
MAGIC IS A BEHAVIOUR
Who hasn’t tinkered with a pendulum, the Tarot, i-ching, the pair of pencils against each other? Who hasn’t worn a lucky T in worrisome situations? Even if your lucky T is an AC/DC T or your lucky knits are polka dotted, and you secretly use them since you have already ridiculed publicly those who do; magic is something we try doing in secret.
Magic is not a religion. Despite what we have been made to believe, it was just recently introduced as one2, in spite of being a behaviour.
A behaviour that’s become popular in most narratives; such as in: Macbeth, Faust, LOTR, Harry Potter, Charmed, Bewitched, Zelda, Dungeons and dragons, Final fantasy, A song of ice and fire… The idea of magic being an exchange.
To perform magic you need to exchange blood, life or words to get an unknown but powerful energy in return. This energy being limited by serious restrictions.
It is still the same from Sumer times. It requires summoning, spelling, demons, potions and accessories ( wands or staffs). Even those modern adaptations like in The fever king by Victoria Lee3, the magic systems depict a certain exchange of energy. Tough this one, is introducing magic to science the same way Underworld changed vampirism from divine curse to viral infection.
In the original entry I exposed the theory, magic as an exchange of mysterious interactions between energy and matter and the restrictions on it; was slowly disappearing. After reading the series of The black witch, Crystal throne (I’m stuck in the last book) and The all souls trilogy ( reading the last quarter of the second book); I reluctantly admit magic is still here. It has us reading about the unproven properties of plants Why are we still depicting plants as powerful medicines when very few plants have effective medicinal properties? and divination using tea leaves or the sixth sense, third eye… chords. Which means we are not as sensible and rational as I thought we were becoming. I mean, we might not want to pay for our fortunes to be told but we still associate magic to good luck.
Therefore…
Thanks for reading, subscribing or whatever it is you do with this blog’s entries. Pasto kalo.- If I haven’t done so… What kind of advice would I give you? It would be a dishonest one. ↩︎
- Gerald Garner introduced Wicca as a religion in 1954; being the overkillz wicca is the masculine version of the witch noun in the Anglo-Saxon language ( says Wikipedia). ↩︎
- According to me, I read the webtoon promotional version and translated some «5 things I learnt writing X» entry in Terrible minds ↩︎
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24 de diciembre
Photo by Axel Grollemund on Pexels.com
¿Noche de paz?
Seguro.
Paz, paz, splosh, ahuuu.
Tronaban los cohetes,
Aullaban las respuestas.
¿Todo duerme en derredor?
Yo y las demás creaturas,
Esperabamos silencio.
¿Bebian los peces en el río?
Sidra, cerveza y tequila.
Brindaban y boqueaban los salmos.
Salmos del balance financiero.
Aleluya comer bacalao y romeros. -
Cuentos sobre la culpa
Photo by Emily Rose on Pexels.com Él ha visto hermosas acusaciones, en las que no había una palabra que sobrase. Ésta no era una: las frases se empujaban y chocaban entre sí, y se aguijoneaban y se derramaban, feas en el contenido y feas en la forma. El plan contra Ana no está santificado en su gestación, es intempestivo en su presentación, una masa de tejido nacida sin forma; esperaba una lengua que lo moldease como moldea a los oseznos la lengua de su madre que los lame. Tú lo alimentaste, pero no sabías lo que alimentabas: ¿quién habría pensado que Mark confesaría, o que Ana actuaría en todos los aspectos como una mujer oprimida y culpable, con el peso del pecado sobre ella? Es como los hombres dijeron hoy en el juicio: somos culpables de toda clase de acusaciones, hemos pecado todos, estamos todos carcomidos y podridos de delitos e, incluso a la luz de la Iglesia y del Evangelio, no debemos saber siquiera cuáles son.
Thomas Cromwell. Una reina en el estrado. Hilary Mantel.
