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Rugby World Cup: England keep calm and carry on towards final day of destiny – Mirror Online

Posted on October 28, 2019 by Danzig

When the pandemonium around the fringes died down you were struck by the calmness in the middle.

The almost total absence of celebration, let alone any form of smugness or self congratulation.

England had just put down a performance for the ages. Beaten New Zealand in a World Cup semi-final so comprehensively the men in black went a whiter shade of pale at the horror of it all.

Yet in the glorious aftermath it was as much as they could do to raise a smile.

The feeling now is that weve given ourselves an opportunity, said fly-half George Ford. That is literally all it is. Weve got one opportunity now to finish it off. We want to enjoy the win, but we understand what is ahead of us.

Straight after the game Eddie Jones walked into the England changing room and addressed the squad.

It was: well done, good win, said Ford. He said he was proud of us now lets crack on to this week.

We are over the moon with the win but genuinely, and this is not faking it in any way, the feeling across the players is we want to finish this off.

This is a far cry from 1997 when England were lampooned for doing a lap of honour at Old Trafford after being hammered by the All Blacks.

Call it the Eddie effect.

From the moment Jones took charge he focused the players on 2 November 2019. He told them that would be the day England would become the best team in the world. Sign up or ship out.

Everything else has been been merely a stepping stone to that goal, even this: eliminating the two-time defending champions with as perfect a display as you could ever see on a rugby field.

At the start of the week Eddie wanted us to rewrite history, said Billy Vunipola. We have gone one step towards doing that. Now we have another game.

This remarkable sense of calm, of existing in the moment, served England well at Yokohama Stadium where, in Fords words, we knew we were not able to switch off for one second.

They had two tries disallowed, momentum swings which would have rocked lesser sides, yet simply came back harder.

Even when they made their only real mistake of the game, a lineout malfunction that gifted New Zealand their only points, there was no dialling down of spirit.

It was incredibly calm behind the posts, said Ford. And that was massive for us to be honest. At that stage of the game, to give a try away but we were thinking whats next?

We went down the other end and got three points, which is exactly how you want to respond.

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This has not just happened because Jones has decreed it. It has taken an inordinate amount of work by all concerned. It was only in March that England blew a 31-0 lead against Scotland.

Having some structures and systems in place to calm everyone down and get some messages across has massively benefitted everyone, Ford admitted. Were still working on it every day."

And so England move forward to the next match. One step from immortality was how it was put to Jones.

It's another week for us, came the straight reply. That talk is for you guys. Enjoy it, because you won't be getting anything from us."

ENGLAND - Try: Tuilagi. Con: Farrell. Pen: Ford 4.

NEW ZEALAND - Try: Savea. Con: Mounga.

Ode: Intimations of Immortality – Wikipedia

Posted on November 20, 2017 by Fredricko

Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood (also known as Ode, Immortality Ode or Great Ode) is a poem by William Wordsworth, completed in 1804 and published in Poems, in Two Volumes (1807). The poem was completed in two parts, with the first four stanzas written among a series of poems composed in 1802 about childhood. The first part of the poem was completed on 27 March 1802 and a copy was provided to Wordsworth's friend and fellow poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who responded with his own poem, Dejection: An Ode, in April. The fourth stanza of the ode ends with a question, and Wordsworth was finally able to answer it with 7 additional stanzas completed in early 1804. It was first printed as Ode in 1807, and it was not until 1815 that it was edited and reworked to the version that is currently known, Ode: Intimations of Immortality.

The poem is an irregular Pindaric ode in 11 stanzas that combines aspects of Coleridge's Conversation poems, the religious sentiments of the Bible and the works of Saint Augustine, and aspects of the elegiac and apocalyptic traditions. It is split into three movements: the first four stanzas discuss death, and the loss of youth and innocence; the second four stanzas describes how age causes man to lose sight of the divine, and the final three stanzas express hope that the memory of the divine allow us to sympathise with our fellow man. The poem relies on the concept of Pre-existence, the idea that the soul existed before the body, to connect children with the ability to witness the divine within nature. As children mature, they become more worldly and lose this divine vision, and the ode reveals Wordsworth's understanding of psychological development that is also found in his poems The Prelude and Tintern Abbey. Wordsworth's praise of the child as the "best philosopher" was criticised by Coleridge and became the source of later critical discussion.

Modern critics sometimes have referred to Wordsworth's poem as the "Great Ode"[1][2] and ranked it among his best poems,[3] but this wasn't always the case. Contemporary reviews of the poem were mixed, with many reviewers attacking the work or, like Lord Byron, dismissing the work without analysis. The critics felt that Wordsworth's subject matter was too "low" and some felt that the emphasis on childhood was misplaced. Among the Romantic poets, most praised various aspects of the poem however. By the Victorian period, most reviews of the ode were positive with only John Ruskin taking a strong negative stance against the poem. The poem continued to be well received into the 20th-century, with few exceptions. The majority ranked it as one of Wordsworth's greatest poems.

In 1802, Wordsworth wrote many poems that dealt with his youth. These poems were partly inspired by his conversations with his sister, Dorothy, whom he was living with in the Lake District at the time. The poems, beginning with The Butterfly and ending with To the Cuckoo, were all based on Wordsworth's recalling both the sensory and emotional experience of his childhood. From To the Cuckoo, he moved onto The Rainbow, both written on 26 March 1802, and then on to Ode: Intimation of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. As he moved from poem to poem, he began to question why, as a child, he once was able to see an immortal presence within nature but as an adult that was fading away except in the few moments he was able to meditate on experiences found in poems like To the Cuckoo. While sitting at breakfast on 27 March, he began to compose the ode. He was able to write four stanzas that put forth the question about the faded image and ended, "Where is it now, the glory and the dream?" The poem would remain in its smaller, four-stanza version until 1804.[5]

The short version of the ode was possibly finished in one day because Wordsworth left the next day to spend time with Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Keswick.[6] Close to the time Wordsworth and Coleridge climbed the Skiddaw mountain, 3 April 1802, Wordsworth recited the four stanzas of the ode that were completed. The poem impressed Coleridge,[7] and, while with Wordsworth, he was able to provide his response to the ode's question within an early draft of his poem, "Dejection: an Ode".[8] In early 1804, Wordsworth was able to return his attention to working on the ode. It was a busy beginning of the year with Wordsworth having to help Dorothy recover from an illness in addition to writing his poems. The exact time of composition is unknown, but it probably followed his work on The Prelude, which consumed much of February and was finished on 17 March. Many of the lines of the ode are similar to the lines of The Prelude Book V, and he used the rest of the ode to try to answer the question at the end of the fourth stanza.[9]

The poem was first printed in full for Wordsworth's 1807 collection of poems, Poems, in Two Volumes, under the title Ode.[10] It was the last poem of the second volume of the work,[11] and it had its own title page separating it from the rest of the poems, including the previous poem Peele Castle. Wordsworth added an epigraph just before publication, "paul majora canamus". The Latin phrase is from Virgil's Eclogue 4, meaning "let us sing a somewhat loftier song".[12] The poem was reprinted under its full title Ode: Intimation of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood for Wordsworth's collection Poems (1815). The reprinted version also contained an epigraph that, according to Henry Crabb Robinson, was added at Crabb's suggestion.[10] The epigraph was from "My Heart Leaps Up".[13] In 1820, Wordsworth issued The Miscellaneous Poems of William Wordsworth that collected the poems he wished to be preserved with an emphasis on ordering the poems, revising the text, and including prose that would provide the theory behind the text. The ode was the final poem of the fourth and final book, and it had its own title-page, suggesting that it was intended as the poem that would serve to represent the completion of his poetic abilities. The 1820 version also had some revisions,[14] including the removal of lines 140 and 141.[15]

The poem uses an irregular form of the Pindaric ode in 11 stanzas. The lengths of the lines and of the stanzas vary throughout the text, and the poem begins with an iambic meter. The irregularities increase throughout the poem and Stanza IX lacks a regular form before being replaced with a march-like meter in the final two stanzas. The poem also contains multiple enjambments and there is a use of an ABAB rhyme scheme that gives the poem a singsong quality. By the end of the poem, the rhymes start to become as irregular in a similar way to the meter, and the irregular Stanza IX closes with an iambic couplet. The purpose of the change in rhythm, rhyme, and style is to match the emotions expressed in the poem as it develops from idea to idea. The narration of the poem is in the style of an interior monologue,[16] and there are many aspects of the poem that connects it to Coleridge's style of poetry called "Conversation poems", especially the poem's reliance on a one sided discussion that expects a response that never comes.[17] There is also a more traditional original of the discussion style of the poem, as many of the prophetic aspects of the poem are related to the Old Testament of the Bible.[18] Additionally, the reflective and questioning aspects are similar to the Psalms and the works of Saint Augustine, and the ode contains what is reminiscent of Hebrew prayer.[19]

In terms of genre, the poem is an ode, which makes it a poem that is both prayer and contains a celebration of its subject. However, this celebration is mixed with questioning and this hinders the continuity of the poem.[20] The poem is also related to the elegy in that it mourns the loss of childhood vision,[21] and the title page of the 1807 edition emphasises the influence of Virgil's Eclogue 4.[22] Wordsworth's use of the elegy, in his poems including the "Lucy" poems, parts of The Excursion, and others, focus on individuals that protect themselves from a sense of loss by turning to nature or time. He also rejects any kind of fantasy that would take him away from reality while accepting both death and the loss of his own abilities to time while mourning over the loss.[23] However, the elegy is traditionally a private poem while Wordsworth's ode is more public in nature.[24] The poem is also related to the genre of apocalyptic writing in that it focuses on what is seen or the lack of sight. Such poems emphasise the optical sense and were common to many poems written by the Romantic poets, including his own poem The Ruined Cottage, Coleridge's "Dejection: An Ode" and Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Percy Bysshe Shelley's Hymn to Intellectual Beauty and The Zucca.[25]

The ode contains 11 stanzas split into three movements. The first movement is four stanzas long and discusses the narrator's inability to see the divine glory of nature, the problem of the poem. The second movement is four stanzas long and has a negative response to the problem. The third movement is three stanzas long and contains a positive response to the problem.[26] The ode begins by contrasting the narrator's view of the world as a child and as a man, with what was once a life interconnected to the divine fading away:[27]

In the second and third stanzas, the narrator continues by describing his surroundings and various aspects of nature that he is no longer able to feel. He feels as if he is separated from the rest of nature until he experiences a moment that brings about feelings of joy that are able to overcome his despair:[28]

The joy in stanza III slowly fades again in stanza IV as the narrator feels like there is "something that is gone".[28] As the stanza ends, the narrator asks two different questions to end the first movement of the poem. Though they appear to be similar, one asks where the visions are now ("Where is it now") while the other doesn't ("Whither is fled"), and they leave open the possibility that the visions could return:[29]

The second movement begins in stanza V by answering the question of stanza IV by describing a Platonic system of pre-existence. The narrator explains how humans start in an ideal world that slowly fades into a shadowy life:[28]

Before the light fades away as the child matures, the narrator emphasises the greatness of the child experiencing the feelings. By the beginning of stanza VIII, the child is described as a great individual,[30] and the stanza is written in the form of a prayer that praises the attributes of children:[31]

The end of stanza VIII brings about the end of a second movement within the poem. The glories of nature are only described as existing in the past, and the child's understanding of morality is already causing them to lose what they once had:[29]

The questions in Stanza IV are answered with words of despair in the second movement, but the third movement is filled with joy.[26] Stanza IX contains a mixture of affirmation of life and faith as it seemingly avoids discussing what is lost.[30] The stanza describes how a child is able to see what others do not see because children do not comprehend mortality, and the imagination allows an adult to intimate immortality and bond with his fellow man:[32]

The children on the shore represents the adult narrator's recollection of childhood, and the recollection allows for an intimation of returning to that mental state. In stanza XI, the imagination allows one to know that there are limits to the world, but it also allows for a return to a state of sympathy with the world lacking any questions or concerns:[33]

The poem concludes with an affirmation that, though changed by time, the narrator is able to be the same person he once was:[34]

The first version of the ode is similar to many of Wordsworth's spring 1802 poems. The ode is like To the Cuckoo in that both poems discuss aspects of nature common to the end of spring. Both poems were not crafted at times that the natural imagery could take place, so Wordsworth had to rely on his imagination to determine the scene. Wordsworth refers to "A timely utterance" in the third stanza, possibly the same event found in his The Rainbow, and the ode contains feelings of regret that the experience must end. This regret is joined with feelings of uneasiness that he no longer feels the same way he did as a boy. The ode reflects Wordsworth's darker feelings that he could no longer return to a peaceful state with nature. This gloomy feeling is also present in The Ruined Cottage and in Tintern Abbey.[35] Of the other 1802 poems, the ode is different from his Resolution and Independence, a poem that describes the qualities needed to become a great poet. The poem argued that a poet should not be excessive or irresponsible in behaviour and contains a sense of assurance that is not found within the original four stanzas. Instead, there is a search for such a feeling but the poem ends without certainty, which relates the ode to Coleridge's poem Dejection: An Ode.[36] When read together, Coleridge's and Wordsworth's poem form a dialogue with an emphasis on the poet's relationship with nature and humanity. However, Wordsworth's original four stanzas describing a loss is made darker in Coleridge and, to Coleridge, only humanity and love are able to help the poet.[37]

While with Wordsworth, Coleridge was able to read the poem and provide his response to the ode's question within an early draft of his poem, Dejection: an Ode. Coleridge's answer was to claim that the glory was the soul and it is a subjective answer to the question. Wordsworth took a different path as he sought to answer the poem, which was to declare that childhood contained the remnants of a beatific state and that being able to experience the beauty that remained later was something to be thankful for. The difference between the two could be attributed to the differences in the poets' childhood experiences; Coleridge suffered from various pain in his youth whereas Wordsworth's was far more pleasant. It is possible that Coleridge's earlier poem, The Mad Monk (1800) influenced the opening of the ode and that discussions between Dorothy and Wordsworth about Coleridge's childhood and painful life were influences on the crafting of the opening stanza of the poem.[38] However, the message in the ode, as with Tintern Abbey, describes the pain and suffering of life as able to dull the memory of early joy from nature but it is unable to completely destroy it.[39] The suffering leads Wordsworth to recognise what is soothing in nature, and he credits the pain as leading to a philosophical understanding of the world.[40]

The poem is similar to the conversation poems created by Coleridge, including Dejection: An Ode. The poems were not real conversations as there is no response to the narrator of the poem, but they are written as if there would be a response. The poems seek to have a response, though it never comes, and the possibility of such a voice though absence is a type of prosopopoeia. In general, Coleridge's poems discuss the cosmic as they long for a response, and it is this aspect, not a possible object of the conversation, that forms the power of the poem. Wordsworth took up the form in both Tintern Abbey and Ode: Intimations of Immortality, but he lacks the generous treatment of the narrator as found in Coleridge's poems. As a whole, Wordsworth's technique is impersonal and more logical, and the narrator is placed in the same position as the object of the conversation. The narrator of Wordsworth is more self-interested and any object beyond the narrator is kept without a possible voice and is turned into a second self of the poet. As such, the conversation has one of the participants lose his identity for the sake of the other and that individual represents loss and mortality.[41]

The expanded portion of the ode is related to the ideas expressed in Wordsworth's The Prelude Book V in their emphasis on childhood memories and a connection between the divine and humanity. To Wordsworth, the soul was created by the divine and was able to recognise the light in the world. As a person ages, they are no longer able to see the light, but they can still recognise the beauty in the world.[42] He elaborated on this belief in a note to the text: "Archimedes said that he could move the world if he had a point whereon to rest his machine. Who has not felt the same aspirations as regards the world of his own mind? Having to wield some of its elements when I was impelled to write this poem on the "Immortality of the Soul", I took hold of the notion of pre-existence as having sufficient foundation in humanity for authorising me to make for my purpose the best use I could of it as a Poet."[43] This "notion of pre-existence" is somewhat Platonic in nature, and it is the basis for Wordsworth believing that children are able to be the "best philosopher".[44] The idea was not intended as a type of metempsychosis, the reincarnation of the soul from person to person, and Wordsworth later explained that the poem was not meant to be regarded as a complete philosophical view: "In my Ode... I do not profess to give a literal representation of the state of the affections and of the moral being in childhood. I record my feelings at that time,--my absolute spirituality, my 'all-soulness,' if I may so speak. At that time I could not believe that I should lie down quietly in the grave, and that my body would moulder into dust."[45]

Wordsworth's explanation of the origin of the poem suggests that it was inspiration and passion that led to the ode's composition, and he later said that the poem was to deal with the loss of sensations and a desire to overcome the natural process of death. As for the specific passages in the poem that answer the question of the early version, two of the stanzas describe what it is like to be a child in a similar manner to his earlier poem, "To Hartley Coleridge, Six Years Old" dedicated to Coleridge's son. In the previous poem, the subject was Hartley's inability to understand death as an end to life or a separation. In the ode, the child is Wordsworth and, like Hartley or the girl described in "We are Seven", he too was unable to understand death and that inability is transformed into a metaphor for childish feelings. The later stanzas also deal with personal feelings but emphasise Wordsworth's appreciation for being able to experience the spiritual parts of the world and a desire to know what remains after the passion of childhood sensations are gone.[46] This emphasis of the self places mankind in the position of the object of prayer, possibly replacing a celebration of Christ's birth with a celebration of his own as the poem describes mankind coming from the eternal down to earth. Although this emphasis seems non-Christian, many of the poem's images are Judeo-Christian in origin.[47] Additionally, the Platonic theory of pre-existence is related to the Christian understanding of the Incarnation, which is a connection that Shelley drops when he reuses many of Wordsworth's ideas in The Triumph of Life.[48]

The idea of pre-existence within the poem contains only a limited theological component, and Wordsworth later believed that the concept was "far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith."[49] In 1989, Gene Ruoff argued that the idea was connected to Christian theology in that the Christian theorist Origen adopted the belief and relied on it in the development of Christian doctrine. What is missing in Origen's platonic system is Wordsworth's emphasis on childhood, which could be found in the beliefs of the Cambridge Platonists and their works, including Henry Vaughan's "The Retreate".[50] Even if the idea is not Christian, it still cannot be said that the poem lacks a theological component because the poem incorporates spiritual images of natural scenes found in childhood.[51] Among those natural scenes, the narrator includes a Hebrew prayer-like praise of God for the restoration of the soul to the body in the morning and the attributing of God's blessing to the various animals he sees. What concerns the narrator is that he is not being renewed like the animals and he is fearful over what he is missing. This is similar to a fear that is provided at the beginning of The Prelude and in Tintern Abbey. As for the understanding of the soul contained within the poem, Wordsworth is more than Platonic in that he holds an Augustinian concept of mercy that leads to the progress of the soul. Wordsworth differs from Augustine in that Wordsworth seeks in the poem to separate himself from the theory of solipsism, the belief that nothing exists outside of the mind. The soul, over time, exists in a world filled with the sublime before moving to the natural world, and the man moves from an egocentric world to a world with nature and then to a world with mankind. This system links nature with a renewal of the self.[52]

Ode: Intimations of Immortality is about childhood, but the poem doesn't completely focus on childhood or what was lost from childhood. Instead, the ode, like The Prelude and Tintern Abbey, places an emphasis on how an adult develops from a child and how being absorbed in nature inspires a deeper connection to humanity.[53] The ode focuses not on Dorothy or on Wordsworth's love, Mary Hutchinson, but on himself and is part of what is called his "egotistical sublime".[54] Of his childhood, Wordsworth told Catherine Clarkson in an 1815 letter that the poem "rests entirely upon two recollections of childhood, one that of a splendour in the objects of sense which is passed away, and the other an indisposition to bend to the law of death as applying to our particular case.... A Reader who has not a vivid recollection of these feelings having existed in his mind in childhood cannot understand the poem."[55] Childhood, therefore, becomes a means to exploring memory, and the imagination, as Wordsworth claims in the letter, is connected to man's understanding of immortality. In a letter to Isabella Fenwick, he explained his particular feelings about immortality that he held when young:[56] "I was often unable to think of external things as having external existence, and I communed with all that I saw as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature."[57] These feelings were influenced by Wordsworth's own experience of loss, including the death of his parents, and may have isolated him from society if the feelings did not ease as he matured.[58]

Like the two other poems, The Prelude and Tintern Abbey, the ode discusses Wordsworth's understanding of his own psychological development, but it is not a scientific study of the subject. He believed that it is difficult to understand the soul and emphasises the psychological basis of his visionary abilities, an idea found in the ode but in the form of a lamentation for the loss of vision. To Wordsworth, vision is found in childhood but is lost later, and there are three types of people that lose their vision. The first are men corrupted through either an apathetic view of the visions or through meanness of mind. The second are the "common" people who lose their vision as a natural part of ageing. The last, the gifted, lose parts of their vision, and all three retain at least a limited ability to experience visions. Wordsworth sets up multiple stages, infancy, childhood, adolescence, and maturity as times of development but there is no real boundary between each stage. To Wordsworth, infancy is when the "poetic spirit", the ability to experience visions, is first developed and is based on the infant learning about the world and bonding to nature. As the child goes through adolescence, he continues to bond with nature and this is slowly replaced by a love for humanity, a concept known as "One Life". This leads to the individual despairing and only being able to resist despair through imagination.[59] When describing the stages of human life, one of the images Wordsworth relies on to describe the negative aspects of development is a theatre stage, the Latin idea of theatrum mundi. The idea allows the narrator to claim that people are weighed down by the roles they play over time. The narrator is also able to claim through the metaphor that people are disconnected from reality and see life as if in a dream.[60]

Wordsworth returns to the ideas found within the complete ode many times in his later works. There is also a strong connection between the ode and Wordsworth's Ode to Duty, completed at the same time in 1804. The poems describe Wordsworth's assessment of his poetry and contains reflections on conversations held between Wordsworth and Coleridge on poetry and philosophy. The basis of the Ode to Duty states that love and happiness are important to life, but there is something else necessary to connect an individual to nature, affirming the narrator's loyalty to a benevolent divine presence in the world. However, Wordsworth was never satisfied with the result of Ode to Duty as he was with Ode: Intimations on Immortality.[61] In terms of use of light as a central image, the ode is related to Peele Castle, but the light in the latter poem is seen as an illusion and stands in opposition to the ode's ideas.[62] In an 1809 essay as part of his Essays upon Epitaphs for Coleridge's journal, The Friend, Wordsworth argued that people have intimations that there is an immortal aspect of their life and that without such feelings that joy could not be felt in the world. The argument and the ideas are similar to many of the statements in the ode along with those in The Prelude, Tintern Abbey, and "We Are Seven". He would also return directly to the ode in his 1817 poem Composed upon an Evening of Extraordinary Splendor and Beauty where he evaluates his own evolving life and poetic works while discussing the loss of an early vision of the world's joys. In the Ode: Intimations on Immortality, Wordsworth concluded that he gives thanks that was able to gain even though he lost his vision of the joy in the world, but in the later work he tones down his emphasis on the gain and provides only a muted thanks for what remains of his ability to see the glory in the world.[63]

Wordsworth's ode is a poem that describes how suffering allows for growth and an understanding of nature,[40] and this belief influenced the poetry of other Romantic poets. Wordsworth followed a Virgilian idea called lachrimae rerum, which means that "life is growth" but it implies that there is also loss within life. To Wordsworth, the loss brought about enough to make up for what was taken. Shelley, in his Prometheus Unbound, describes a reality that would be the best that could be developed but always has the suffering, death, and change. John Keats developed an idea called "the Burden of the Mystery" that emphasizes the importance of suffering in the development of man and necessary for maturation.[64] However, Coleridge's Dejection: An Ode describes the loss of his own poetic ability as he aged and mourned what time took. In Coleridge's theory, his poetic abilities were the basis for happiness and without them there would only be misery.[65] In addition to views on suffering, Shelley relies on Wordsworth's idea of pre-existence in The Triumph of Life,[48] and Keats relies on Wordsworth's interrogative technique in many of his poems, but he discards the egocentric aspects of the questions.[66]

The ode praises children for being the "best Philosopher" ("lover of truth") because they live in truth and have prophetic abilities.[31] This claim bothers Coleridge and he writes, in Biographia Literaria, that Wordsworth was trying to be a prophet in an area that he could have no claim to prophecy.[67] In his analysis of the poem, Coleridge breaks down many aspects of Wordsworth's claims and asks, "In what sense can the magnificent attributes, above quoted, be appropriated to a child, which would not make them equally suitable to a be, or a dog, or a field of corn: or even to a ship, or to the wind and waves that propel it? The omnipresent Spirit works equally in them, as in the child; and the child is equally unconscious of it as they."[68] The knowledge of nature that Wordsworth thinks is wonderful in children, Coleridge feels is absurd in Wordsworth since a poet couldn't know how to make sense of a child's ability to sense the divine any more than the child with a limited understanding could know of the world.[69] I. A. Richards, in his work Coleridge on Imagination (1934), responds to Coleridge's claims by asking, "Why should Wordsworth deny that, in a much less degree, these attributes are equally suitable to a bee, or a dog, or a field of corn?"[70]

Later, Cleanth Brooks reanalyzes the argument to point out that Wordsworth would include the animals among the children. He also explains that the child is the "best philosopher" because of his understanding of the "eternal deep", which comes from enjoying the world through play: "They are playing with their little spades and sand-buckets along the beach on which the waves break."[71] In 1992, Susan Eilenberg returned to the dispute and defended Coleridge's analysis by explaining that "It exhibits the workings of the ambivalence Coleridge feels toward the character of Wordsworth's poetry; only now, confronting greater poetry, his uneasiness is greater... If Wordsworth's weakness is incongruity, his strength is propriety. That Coleridge should tell us this at such length tells as much about Coleridge as about Wordsworth: reading the second volume of the Biographia, we learn not only Wordsworth's strong and weak points but also the qualities that most interest Coleridge."[72]

The Ode: Intimations of Immortality is the most celebrated poem published in Wordsworth's Poems in Two Volumes collection. While modern critics believe that the poems published in Wordsworth's 1807 collection represented a productive and good period of his career, contemporary reviewers were split on the matter and many negative reviews cast doubts on his circle of poets known as the Lake Poets. Negative reviews were found in the Critical Review, Le Beau Monde and Literary Annual Register.[73]George Gordon Byron, a fellow Romantic poet but not an associate of Wordsworth's, responded to Poems in Two Volumes, in a 3 July 1807 Monthly Literary Recreations review, with a claim that the collection lacked the quality found in Lyrical Ballads.[74] When referring to Ode: Intimations of Immortality, he dismissed the poem as Wordsworth's "innocent odes" without providing any in-depth response, stating only: "On the whole, however, with the exception of the above, and other innocent odes of the same cast, we think these volumes display a genius worthy of higher pursuits, and regret that Mr. W. confines his muse to such trifling subjects... Many, with inferior abilities, have acquired a loftier seat on Parnassus, merely by attempting strains in which Mr. W. is more qualified to excel."[75] The poem was received negatively but for a different reason from Wordsworth's and Coleridge's friend Robert Southey, also a Romantic poet. Southey, in an 8 December 1807 letter to Walter Scott, wrote, "There are certainly some pieces there which are good for nothing... and very many which it was highly injudicious to publish.... The Ode upon Pre-existence is a dark subject darkly handled. Coleridge is the only man who could make such a subject luminous."[76]

Francis Jeffrey, a Whig lawyer and editor of the Edinburgh Review, originally favoured Wordsworth's poetry following the publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 but turned against the poet from 1802 onward. In response to Wordsworth's 1807 collection of poetry, Jeffrey contributed an anonymous review to the October 1807 Edinburgh Review that condemned Wordsworth's poetry again.[77] In particular, he declared the ode "beyond all doubt, the most illegible and unintelligible part of the publication. We can pretend to give no analysis or explanation of it;-- our readers must make what they can of the following extracts."[78] After quoting the passage, he argues that he has provided enough information for people to judge if Wordsworth's new school of poetry should be replace the previous system of poetry: "If we were to stop here, we do not think that Mr Wordsworth, or his admirers, would have any reason to complain; for what we have now quoted is undeniably the most peculiar and characteristic part of his publication, and must be defended and applauded if the merit or originality of his system is to be seriously maintained.[78] In putting forth his own opinion, Jeffrey explains, "In our own opinion, however, the demerit of that system cannot be fairly appretiated, until it be shown, that the author of the bad verses which we have already extracted, can write good verses when he pleases".[78] Jeffrey later wrote a semi-positive review of the ode, for the 12 April 1808 Edinburgh Review, that praised Wordsworth when he was least Romantic in his poetry. He believed that Wordsworth's greatest weakness was portraying the low aspects of life in a lofty tone.[74]

Another semi-negative response to the poem followed on 4 January 1808 in the Eclectic Review. The writer, James Montgomery, attacked the 1807 collection of poems for depicting low subjects. When it came to the ode, Montgomery attacked the poem for depicting pre-existence.[74] After quoting the poem with extracts from the whole collection, he claimed, "We need insist no more on the necessity of using, in poetry, a language different from and superior to 'the real language of men,' since Mr. Wordsworth himself is so frequently compelled to employ it, for the expression of thoughts which without it would be incommunicable. These volumes are distinguished by the same blemishes and beauties as were found in their predecessors, but in an inverse proportion: the defects of the poet, in this performance, being as much greater than his merits, as they were less in his former publication."[79] In his conclusion, Montgomery returned to the ode and claimed, that "the reader is turned loose into a wilderness of sublimity, tenderness, bombast, and absurdity, to find out the subject as well as he can... After our preliminary remarks on Mr. Wordsworth's theory of poetical language, and the quotations which we have given from these and his earlier compositions, it will be unnecessary to offer any further estimate or character of his genius. We shall only add one remark.... Of the pieces now published he has said nothing: most of them seem to have been written for no purpose at all, and certainly to no good one."[80] In January 1815, Montgomery returned to Wordsworth's poetry in another review and argues, "Mr. Wordsworth often speaks in ecstatic strains of the pleasure of infancy. If we rightly understand him, he conjectures that the soul comes immediately from a world of pure felicity, when it is born into this troublous scene of care and vicissitude... This brilliant allegory, (for such we must regard it,) is employed to illustrate the mournful truth, that looking back from middle age to the earliest period of remembrance we find, 'That there hath pass'd away a glory from the earth,'... Such is Life".[81]

John Taylor Coleridge, nephew to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, submitted an anonymous review for the April 1814 Quarterly Review. Though it was a review of his uncle's Remorse, he connects the intention and imagery found within Coleridge's poem to that in Ode: Intimation of Immortality and John Wilson's "To a Sleeping Child" when saying, "To an extension or rather a modification of this last mentioned principle [obedience to some internal feeling] may perhaps be attributed the beautiful tenet so strongly inculcated by them of the celestial purity of infancy. 'Heaven lies about us in our infancy,' says Mr. Wordsworth, in a passage which strikingly exemplifies the power of imaginative poetry".[82] John Taylor Coleridge returned to Wordsworth's poetry and the ode in a May 1815 review for the British Critic. In the review, he partially condemns Wordsworth's emphasis in the ode on children being connected to the divine: "His occasional lapses into childish and trivial allusion may be accounted for, from the same tendency. He is obscure, when he leaves out links in the chain of association, which the reader cannot easily supply... In his descriptions of children this is particularly the case, because of his firm belief in a doctrine, more poetical perhaps, than either philosophical or christian, that 'Heaven lies about us in our infancy.'"[83]

John Taylor Coleridge continues by explaining the negative aspects of such a concept: "Though the tenderness and beauty resulting from this opinion be to us a rich overpayment for the occasional strainings and refinements of sentiment to which it has given birth, it has yet often served to make the author ridiculous in common eyes, in that it has led him to state his own fairy dreams as the true interpretation and import of the looks and movements of children, as being even really in their minds."[83] In a February 1821 review for the British Critic, John Taylor Coleridge attacked the poem again for a heretical view found in the notion of pre-existence and how it reappeared in Wordsworth's poem "On an Extraordinary Evening of Splendour and Beauty".[84] However, he does claim that the passage of the ode containing the idea is "a passage of exquisite poetry" and that "A more poetical theory of human nature cannot well be devised, and if the subject were one, upon which error was safe, we should forbear to examine it closely, and yield to the delight we have often received from it in the ode from which the last extract [Ode: Intimations of Immortality] is made."[85] He was to continue: "If, therefore, we had met the doctrine in any poet but Mr. Wordsworth, we should have said nothing; but we believe him to be one not willing to promulgate error, even in poetry, indeed it is manifest that he makes his poetry subservient to his philosophy; and this particular notion is so mixed up by him with others, in which it is impossible to suppose him otherwise than serious; that we are constrained to take it for his real and sober belief."[85]

In the same year came responses to the ode by two Romantic writers. Leigh Hunt, a second-generation Romantic poet, added notes to his poem Feast of the Poets that respond to the ideas suggested in Wordsworth's poetry. These ideas include Wordsworth's promotion of a simple mental state without cravings for knowledge, and it is such an ideas that Hunt wanted to mock in his poem. However, Hunt did not disagree completely with Wordsworth's sentiments. After quoting the final lines of the Ode: Intimations of Immortality, those that "Wordsworth has beautifully told us, that to him '--the meanest flow'r that blows can give/ Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears", Hunt claims, "I have no doubt of it; and far be it from me to cast stones into the well in which they lie,-- to disturb those reposing waters,-- that freshness at the bottom of warm hearts,-- those thoughts, which if they are too deep for tears, are also, in their best mood, too tranquil even for smiles. Far be it also from me to hinder the communication of such thoughts to mankind, when they are not sunk beyond their proper depth, so as to make one dizzy in looking down to them."[86] Following Hunt, William Hazlitt, a critic and Romantic writer, wrote a series of essays called "Character of Mr. Wordsworth's New Poems" in three parts, starting in the 21 August 1814 Examiner. Although Hazlitt treated Wordsworth's poetry fairly, he was critical of Wordsworth himself and he removed any positive statements about Wordsworth's person from a reprint of the essays.[87] The 2 October 1814 essay examined poetry as either of imagination or of sentiment, and quotes the final lines of the poem as an example of "The extreme simplicity which some persons have objected to in Mr. Wordsworth's poetry is to be found only in the subject and style: the sentiments are subtle and profound. In the latter respect, his poetry is as much above the common standard or capacity, as in the other it is below it... We go along with him, while he is the subject of his own narrative, but we take leave of him when he makes pedlars and ploughmen his heroes and the interpreters of his sentiments."[88]

In 1817 came two more responses by Romantic poets to the ode. Coleridge was impressed by the ode's themes, rhythm, and structure since he first heard the beginning stanzas in 1802.[89] In an analysis of Wordsworth's poetry for his work Biographia Literaria (1817), Coleridge described what he considered as both the positives and the defects of the ode. In his argument, he both defended his technique and explained: "Though the instances of this defect in Mr. Wordsworth's poems are so few, that for themselves it would have been scarce just to attract the reader's attention toward them; yet I have dwelt on it, and perhaps the more for this very reason. For being so very few, they cannot sensibly detract from the reputation of an author, who is even characterized by the number of profound truths in his writings, which will stand the severest analysis; and yet few as they are, they are exactly those passages which his blind admirers would be most likely, and best able, to imitate."[90] Of the positives that Coleridge identified within the poem, he placed emphasis on Wordsworth's choice of grammar and language that established a verbal purity in which the words chosen could not be substituted without destroying the beauty of the poem. Another aspect Coleridge favoured was the poem's originality of thought and how it contained Wordsworth's understanding of nature and his own experience. Coleridge also praised the lack of a rigorous structure within the poem and claimed that Wordsworth was able to truly capture the imagination. However, part of Coleridge's analysis of the poem and of the poet tend to describe his idealised version of positives and negative than an actual concrete object.[91] In the same year, it was claimed by Benjamin Bailey, in a 7 May 1849 letter to R. M. Milnes, that John Keats, one of the second-generation Romantic poets, discussed the poem with him. In his recollection, Bailey said, "The following passage from Wordsworth's ode on Immortality [lines 140148] was deeply felt by Keats, who however at this time seemed to me to value this great Poet rather in particular passages than in the full length portrait, as it were, of the great imaginative & philosophic Christian Poet, which he really is, & which Keats obviously, not long afterwards, felt him to be."[92]

Following Coleridge's response was an anonymous review in the May 1820 Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, possible by either John Lockhart and John Wilson together or just Lockhart on his own. Of Wordsworth's abilities as a poet in general, the review claimed: "Mr Wordsworth ... is entitled to be classed with the very highest names among his predecessors, as a pure and reverent worshipper of the true majest of the English Muse" and that "Of the genius of Mr Wordsworth, in short, it is now in the hands of every man to judge freely and fully, and for himself. Our own opinion, ever since this Journal commenced, has been clearly and entirely before them; and if there be any one person, on whose mind what we have quoted now, is not enough to make an impression similar to that which our own judgment had long before received we have nothing more to say to that person in regard to the subject of poetry."[93] In discussing the ode in particular, the review characterised the poem as "one of the grandest of his early pieces".[94] In December 1820 came an article in the New Monthly Magazine titled "On the Genius and Writings of Wordsworth" written by Thomas Noon Talfourd. When discussing the poem, Talfourd declared that the ode "is, to our feelings, the noblest piece of lyric poetry in the world. It was the first poem of its author which we read, and never shall we forget the sensations which it excited within us. We had heard the cold sneers attached to his name... and here in the works of this derided poet we found a new vein of imaginative sentiment open to us sacred recollections brought back to our hearts with all the freshness of novelty, and all the venerableness of far-off time".[95] When analysing the relationship between infants and the divine within the poem, the article continued: "What a gift did we then inherit! To have the best and most imperishable of intellectual treasures the mighty world of reminiscences of the days of infancy set before us in a new and holier light".[96]

William Blake, a Romantic poet and artist, thought that Wordsworth was at the same level as the poets Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton. In a diary entry for 27 December 1825, H. C. Robinson recounted a conversation between himself and William Blake shortly before Blake's death: "I read to him Wordsworth's incomparable ode, which he heartily enjoyed. But he repeated, 'I fear Wordsworth loves nature, and nature is the work of the Devil. The Devil is in us as 'far as we are nature.'... The parts of Wordsworth's ode which Blake most enjoyed were the most obscureat all events, those which I least like and comprehend."[97] Following Blake, Chauncy Hare Townshend produced "An Essay on the Theory and the Writings of Wordsworth"for Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in 1829. In the third part, he critiqued Wordsworth's use of pre-existence within the poem and asked "unless our author means to say that, having existed from all eternity, we are of an eternal and indestructible essence; or, in other words, that being incarnate portion of the Deity... we are as Immortal as himself. But if the poet intends to affirm this, do you not perceive that he frustrates his own aim?"[98] He continued by explaining why he felt that Wordsworth's concept fell short of any useful purpose: "For if we are of God's indivisible essence, and receive our separate consciousness from the wall of flesh which, at our birth, was raised between us and the Found of Being, we must, on the dissolution of the body... be again merged in the simple and uncompounded Godhead, lose our individual consciousness... in another sense, become as though we had never been."[98] He concluded his analysis with a critique of the poem as a whole: "I should say that Wordsworth does not display in it any great clearness of thought, or felicity of language... the ode in question is not so much abstruse in idea as crabbed in expression. There appears to be a laborious toiling after originality, ending in a dismal want of harmony."[98]

The ode, like others of Wordsworth's poetry, was favoured by Victorians for its biographical aspects and the way Wordsworth approached feelings of despondency. The American Romantic poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his 1856 work English Traits, claimed that the poem "There are torpid places in his mind, there is something hard and sterile in his poetry, want of grace and variety, want of due catholicity and cosmopolitan scope: he had conformities to English politics and tradition; he had egotistic puerilities in the choice and treatment of his subjects; but let us say of him, that, alone in his time he treated the human mind well, and with an absolute trust. His adherence to his poetic creed rested on real inspirations."[99] The editor of Harper's New Monthly Magazine, George William Curtis, praised the ode in his December 1859 column "Editor's Easy Chair" and claimed that "it was Wordsworth who has written one of the greatest English poets... For sustained splendor of imagination, deep, solemn, and progressive thought, and exquisite variety of music, that poem is unsurpassed. Since Milton's 'Ode upon the Nativity' there is nothing so fine, not forgetting Dryden, Pope, Collins, and the rest, who have written odes."[100]

The philosopher John Stuart Mill liked Wordsworth's ode and found it influential to the formation of his own thoughts. In his Autobiography (1873), he credited Wordsworth's poetry as being able to relieve his mind and overcome a sense of apathy towards life. Of the poems, he particularly emphasised both Wordsworth's 1815 collection of poetry and the Ode: Intimations of Immortality as providing the most help to him, and he specifically said of the ode: "I found that he too had had similar experience to mine; that he also had felt that the first freshness of youthful enjoyment of life was not lasting; but that he had sought for compensation, and found it, in the way in which he was now teaching me to find it. The result was that I gradually, but completely, emerged from my habitual depression, and was never again subject to it."[101] David Mason followed Mill in an 1875 essay on literature, including Wordsworth's poetry. After quoting from the ode, Mason claimed of the poem: "These, and hundreds of other passages that might be quoted, show that Wordsworth possessed, in a very high degree indeed, the true primary quality of the poetimagination; a surcharge of personality or vital spirit, perpetually overflowing among the objects of the otherwise conditioned universe, and refashioning them according to its pleasure."[102]

After Mill, critics focused on the ode's status among Wordsworth's other poems. In July 1877, Edward Dowden, in an article for the Contemporary Review, discussed the Transcendental Movement and the nature of the Romantic poets. when referring to Wordsworth and the ode, he claimed: "Wordsworth in his later years lost, as he expresses it, courage, the spring-like hope and confidence which enables a man to advance joyously towards new discovery of truth. But the poet of 'Tintern Abbey' and the 'Ode on Intimations of Immortality' and the 'Prelude' is Wordsworth in his period of highest energy and imaginative light".[103] Matthew Arnold, in his preface to an 1879 edition of Wordsworth's poetry, explains that he was a great lover of the poems. However, he explains why he believed that the ode was not one of the best: "I have a warm admiration for Laodameia and for the great Ode; but if I am to tell the very truth, I find Laodameia not wholly free from something artificial, and the great Ode not wholly free from something declamatory."[104] His concern was over what he saw as the ideas expressed on childhood and maturity: "Even the 'intimations' of the famous Ode, those corner-stones of the supposed philosophic system of Wordsworth... has itself not the character of poetic truth of the best kind; it has no real solidity" "to say that universally this instinct is mighty in childhood, and tends to die away afterwards, is to say what is extremely doubtful... In general, we may say of these high instincts of early childhood... what Thucydides says of the early achievements of the Greek race:--'It is impossible to speak with certainty of what is so remove; but from all that we can really investigate, I should say that they were no very great things.'"[105]

The Victorian critic John Ruskin, towards the end of the 19th century, provided short analyses of various writers in his "Nature and Literature" essays collected in "Art and Life: a Ruskin Anthology". In speaking of Wordsworth, Ruskin claimed, "Wordsworth is simply a Westmoreland peasant, with considerably less shrewdness than most border Englishmen or Scotsmen inherit; and no sense of humor; but gifted... with vivid sense of natural beauty, and a pretty turn for reflection, not always acute, but, as far as they reach, medicinal to the fever of the restless and corrupted life around him."[106] After mocking the self-reflective nature of Wordsworth's poetry, he then declared that the poetry was "Tuneful nevertheless at heart, and of the heavenly choir, I gladly and frankly acknowledge him; and our English literature enriched with a new and singular virtue in the aerial purity and healthful rightness of his quiet song;but aerial onlynot ethereal; and lowly in its privacy of light". The ode, to Ruskin, becomes a means to deride Wordsworth's intellect and faith when he claims that Wordsworth was "content with intimations of immortality such as may be in skipping of lambs, and laughter of children-incurious to see in the hands the print of the nails."[106] Ruskin's claims were responded to by an article by Richard Hutton in the 7 August 1880 Spectator.[107] The article, "Mr. Ruskin on Wordsworth", stated, "We should hardly have expected Mr. Ruskina great master of irony though he beto lay his finger so unerringly as he does on the weak point of Wordsworth's sublime ode on the 'Intimations of Immortality,' when he speaks of himquite falsely, by the wayas 'content with intimations of immortality'".[108] The article continued with praise of Wordsworth and condemns Ruskin further: "But then, though he shows how little he understands the ode, in speaking of Wordsworth as content with such intimations, he undoubtedly does touch the weak chord in what, but for that weak chord, would be one of the greatest of all monuments of human genius... But any one to whom Wordsworth's great ode is the very core of that body of poetry which makes up the best part of his imaginative life, will be as much astonished to find Mr. Ruskin speaking of it so blindly and unmeaningly as he does".[108]

The ode was viewed positively by the end of the century. George Saintsbury, in his A Short History of English Literature (1898), declared the importance and greatness of the ode: "Perhaps twice only, in Tintern Abbey and in the Ode on the Intimations of Immortality, is the full, the perfect Wordsworth, with his half-pantheistic worship of nature, informed and chastened by an intense sense of human conduct, of reverence and almost of humbleness, displayed in the utmost poetic felicity. And these two are accordingly among the great poems of the world. No unfavorable criticism on either and there has been some, new and old, from persons in whom it is surprising, as well as from persons in whom it is natural has hurt them, though it may have hurt the critics. They are, if not in every smallest detail, yet as wholes, invulnerable and imperishable. They could not be better done."[109]

At the beginning of the 20th century, response to the ode by critics was mostly positive. Andrew Bradley declared in 1909 that "The Immortality Ode, like King Lear, is its author's greatest product, but not his best piece of work."[110] When speaking of Grasmere and Wordsworth, Elias Sneath wrote in 1912: "It witnessed the composition of a large number of poems, many of which may be regarded among the finest products of his imagination. Most of them have already been considered. However, one remains which, in the judgment of some critics, more than any other poem of the numerous creations of his genius, entitles him to a seat among the Immortals. This is the celebrated [ode]... It is, in some respects, one of his most important works, whether viewed from the stand point of mere art, or from that of poetic insight."[111] George Harper, following Sneath in 1916, described the poem in positive terms and said, "Its radiance comes and goes through a shimmering veil. Yet, when we look close, we find nothing unreal or unfinished. This beauty, though supernal, is not evanescent. It bides our return, and whoever comes to seek it as a little child will find it. The imagery, though changing at every turn, is fresh and simple. The language, though connected with thoughts so serious that they impart to it a classic dignity, is natural and for the most part plain.... Nevertheless, a peculiar glamour surrounds the poem. It is the supreme example of what I may venture to term the romance of philosophic thought."[112]

The 1930s contained criticism that praised the poem, but most critics found fault with particular aspects of the poem. F. R. Leavis, in his Revaluation (1936), argued that "Criticism of Stanza VIII ... has been permissible, even correct, since Coleridge's time. But the empty grandiosity apparent there is merely the local manifestation of a general strain, a general factitiousness. The Ode... belongs to the transition at its critical phase, and contains decided elements of the living."[113] He continued, "But these do not lessen the dissatisfaction that one feels with the movementthe movement that makes the piece an ode in the Grand Style; for, as one reads, it is in terms of the movement that the strain, the falsity, first asserts itself. The manipulations by which the change of mood are indicated have, by the end of the third stanza, produced an effect that, in protest, one described as rhythmic vulgarity..., and the strain revealed in technique has an obvious significance".[113] In 1939, Basil Willey argued that the poem was "greatly superior, as poetry, to its psychological counterpart in The Prelude" but also said that "the semi-Platonic machinery of pre-existence... seems intrusive, and foreign to Wordsworth" before concluding that the poem was the "final and definitive expression to the most poignant experience of his poetic life".[114]

Cleanth Brooks used the Ode: Intimation of Immortality as one of his key works to analyse in his 1947 work The Well Wrought Urn. His analysis broke down the ode as a poem disconnected from its biographical implications and focused on the paradoxes and ironies contained within the language. In introducing his analysis, he claimed that it "may be surmised from what has already been remarked, the 'Ode' for all its fine passages, is not entirely successful as a poem. Yet, we shall be able to make our best defense of it in proportion as we recognize and value its use of ambiguous symbol and paradoxical statement. Indeed, it might be maintained that, failing to do this, we shall miss much of its power as poetry and even some of its accuracy of statement."[115] After breaking down the use of paradox and irony in language, he analyses the statements about the childhood perception of glory in Stanza VI and argued, "This stanza, though not one of the celebrated stanzas of the poem, is one of the most finely ironical. Its structural significance too is of first importance, and has perhaps in the past been given too little weight."[116] After analysing more of the poem, Brooks points out that the lines in Stanza IX contains lines that "are great poetry. They are great poetry because ... the children are not terrified... The children exemplify the attitude toward eternity which the other philosopher, the mature philosopher, wins to with difficulty, if he wins to it at all."[117] In his conclusion about the poem, he argues, "The greatness of the 'Ode' lies in the fact that Wordsworth is about the poet's business here, and is not trying to inculcate anything. Instead, he is trying to dramatize the changing interrelations which determine the major imagery."[118] Following Brooks in 1949, C. M. Bowra stated, "There is no need to dispute the honour in which by common consent it [the ode] is held" but he adds "There are passages in the 'Immortal Ode' which have less than his usual command of rhythm and ability to make a line stand by itself... But these are unimportant. The whole has a capacious sweep, and the form suits the majestic subject... There are moments when we suspect Wordsworth of trying to say more than he means.[119] Similarly, George Mallarby also revealed some flaws in the poem in his 1950 analysis: "In spite of the doubtful philosophical truth of the doctrine of pre-existence borrowed from Platon, in spite of the curiously placed emphasis and an exuberance of feeling somewhat artificially introduced, in spite of the frustrating and unsatisfying conclusion, this poem will remain, so long as the English language remains, one of its chief and unquestionable glories. It lends itself, more than most English odes, to recitation in the grand manner."[120]

By the 1960s and 1970s, the reception of the poem was mixed but remained overall positive. Mary Moorman analysed the poem in 1965 with an emphasis on its biographical origins and Wordsworth's philosophy on the relationship between mankind and nature. When describing the beauty of the poem, she stated, "Wordsworth once spoke of the Ode as 'this famous, ambitious and occasionally magnificent poem'. Yet it is not so much its magnificence that impresses, as the sense of resplendent yet peaceful light in which it is bathedwhether it is the 'celestial light' and 'glory' of the first stanza, or the 'innocent Brightness of a new-born Day' of the last."[121] In 1967, Yvor Winters criticised the poem and claimed that "Wordsworth gives us bad oratory about his own clumsy emotions and a landscape that he has never fully realized."[122] Geoffrey Durrant, in his 1970 analysis of the critical reception of the ode, claimed, "it may be remarked that both the admirers of the Ode, and those who think less well of it, tend to agree that it is unrepresentative, and that its enthusiastic, Dionysian, and mystical vein sets it apart, either on a lonely summit or in a special limbo, from the rest of Wordsworth's work. And the praise that it has received is at times curiously equivocal."[123] In 1975, Richard Brantley, labelling the poem as the "great Ode", claimed that "Wordsworth's task of tracing spiritual maturity, his account of a grace quite as amazing and perhaps even as Christian as the experience recorded in the spiritual autobiography of his day, is therefore essentially completed".[1] He continued by using the ode as evidence that the "poetic record of his remaining life gives little evidence of temptations or errors as unsettling as the ones he faced and made in France."[1] Summarizing the way critics have approached the poem, John Beer claimed in 1978 that the poem "is commonly regarded as the greatest of his shorter works".[3] Additionally, Beer argued that the ode was the basis for the concepts found in Wordsworth's later poetry.[124]

Criticism of the ode during the 1980s ranged in emphasis on which aspects of the poem were most important, but critics were mostly positive regardless of their approach. In 1980, Hunter Davies analysed the period of time when Wordsworth worked on the ode and included it as one of the "scores of poems of unarguable genius",[125] and later declared the poem Wordsworth's "greatest ode".[2] Stephen Gill, in a study of the style of the 1802 poems, argued in 1989 that the poems were new and broad in range with the ode containing "impassioned sublimity".[126] He later compared the ode with Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty" to declare that "The Ode: Intimations, by contrast, rich in phrases that have entered the language and provided titles for other people's books, is Wordsworth's greatest achievement in rhythm and cadence. Together with Tintern Abbey it has always commanded attention as Wordsworth's strongest meditative poem and Wordsworth indicated his assessment of it by ensuring through the layout and printing of his volumes that the Ode stood apart."[127] In 1986, Marjorie Levinson searched for a political basis in many of Wordsworth's poems and argued that the ode, along with "Michael", Peele Castle, and Tintern Abbey, are "incontestably among the poet's greatest works".[128] Susan Wolfson, in the same year, claimed that "the force of the last lines arises from the way the language in which the poet expresses a resolution of grief at the same time renders a metaphor that implies that grief has not been resolved so much as repressed and buried. And this ambiguity involves another, for Wordsworth makes it impossible to decide whether the tension between resolution and repression... is his indirect confession of a failure to achieve transcendence or a knowing evasion of an imperative to do so."[129] After performing a Freudian-based analysis of the ode, William Galperin, in 1989, argues that "Criticism, in short, cannot accept responsibility for The Excursion's failings any more than it is likely to attribute the success of the 'Intimations Ode' to the satisfaction it offers in seeing a sense of entitlement, or self-worth, defended rather than challenged."[130]

1990s critics emphasised individual images within the poem along with Wordsworth's message being the source of the poem's power. In 1991, John Hayden updated Russell Noyes's 1971 biography of Wordsworth and began his analysis of the ode by claiming: "Wordsworth's great 'Ode on Immortality' is not easy to follow nor wholly clear. A basic difficulty of interpretation centers upon what the poet means by 'immortality.'"[131] However, he goes on to declare, "the majority of competent judges acclaim the 'Ode on Immortality' as Wordsworth's most splendid poem. In no other poem are poetic conditions so perfectly fulfilled. There is the right subject, the right imagery to express it, and the right meter and language for both."[132] Thomas McFarland, when emphasising the use of a river as a standard theme in Wordsworth's poems, stated in 1992: "Not only do Wordsworth's greatest statements--'Tintern Abbey', 'The Immortality Ode', 'The Ruined Cottage', 'Michael', the first two books of The Prelude--all overlie a streaming infrashape, but Wordsworth, like the other Romantics, seemed virtually hypnotized by the idea of running water."[133] After analysing the Wordsworth's incorporation of childhood memories into the ode, G. Kim Blank, in 1995, argued, "It is the recognition and finally the acceptance of his difficult feelings that stand behind and in the greatness and power of the Ode, both as a personal utterance and a universal statement. It is no accident that Wordsworth is here most eloquent. Becoming a whole person is the most powerful statement any of us can ever made. Wordsworth in the Ode here makes it for us."[134] In 1997, John Mahoney praised the various aspects of the poem while breaking down its rhythm and style. In particular, he emphasised the poem's full title as "of great importance for all who study the poem carefully" and claimed, "The final stanza is a powerful and peculiarly Wordsworthian valediction."[135]

In the 21st century, the poem was viewed as Wordsworth's best work. Adam Sisman, in 2007, claimed the poem as "one of [Wordsworth's] greatest works".[136] Following in 2008, Paul Fry argued, "Most readers agree that the Platonism of the Intimations Ode is foreign to Wordsworth, and express uneasiness that his most famous poem, the one he always accorded its special place in arranging his successive editions, is also so idiosyncratic."[137] He continued, "As Simplon and Snowdon also suggest, it was a matter of achieving heights (not the depth of 'Tintern Abbey'), and for that reason the metaphor comes easily when one speaks of the Intimations Ode as a high point in Wordsworth's career, to be highlighted in any new addition as a pinnacle of accomplishment, a poem of the transcendental imagination par excellence."[138]

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Immortality | CSI | FANDOM powered by Wikia

Posted on July 11, 2018 by Danzig

Immortality is a 2015 television movieand the series finale of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

The team is called together when a bomber terrifies Las Vegas. The CSI's have to work quickly to determine who is behind it all, and Lady Heather is their prime suspect.

When a suicide bomber detonates his vest on the floor of the Catherine Willows-owned Eclipse casino, the FBI Special Agent returns from Los Angeles in order to join the investigation. Gil Grissom, meanwhile, working to preserve sharks in international waters, is arrested for trespassing at the Port of San Diego, and D.B. Russell offers Sara Sidle the chance to supervise the local investigation into the bombing. Sidle, who is vying for the position of Director of the Las Vegas Crime Lab, is initially irked when Sheriff Conrad Ecklie inquires as to Grissom's location when Lady Heather Kessler is linked to the crime. Ecklie ensures Grissom is released from custody, and he and Willows, alongside Eclipse security officer Jim Brass, assist in locating the suspect.

As the team works to restore safety to the streets of Las Vegas, D.B. decides it is time for him to "head East" and pursue new challenges, while he places a plaque, dedicated to the memory of Julie Finlay, alongside his personal possessions. Catherine expresses an interest in leaving the FBI and working alongside her daughter Lindsey in the Las Vegas Crime Lab, noting that, should Sara reject the promotion she is going to be offered, Catherine will accept it in lieu of her former colleague. The series ends with the newly promoted Sara, upon hearing a recording of Grissom confessing his love for her, sailing from the Port of San Diego with Grissom.

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PGA Championship 2017: Jordan Spieth chases golf immortality – GolfDigest.com

Posted on August 7, 2017 by Fredricko

At the 99th PGA Championship, Jordan Spieth for the first time will be playing for one of the transcendentprizes in golf: the career Grand Slam. Of course, the 24-year-old is quick to deny hes thinking that way. Spieth insists his focus will be on simply winning the PGA, which, since his victory last month at the Open Championship, is now the only one of the four professional majors he hasnt won. I mean this, he intoned last week at Firestone in explaining his mindset. Its just a major.

Then again, Spieth, who because of his back-nine heroics at Royal Birkdale is occupying the same kind of attention in the golf public consciousness as he did when he won the first two majors in 2015, is floating on a cloud of confidence and well being. Free rolling, as his caddie, Michael Greller puts it. Its the approximate state that three of the five greats who achieved the career Grand Slam were in the year they captured the final leg, given that Ben Hogan in 1953 and Tiger Woods in 2000 each won three major championships, while in 1966 Jack Nicklaus won two.

So while Spieth may insist that because he expects to play in 30 future PGAs, if he doesnt win at Quail Hollow, its not going to be a big-time bummer whatsoever because I know I have plenty of opportunities, theres a chance he may never have a freer roll. And for the record, the last three winners of the Grand SlamGary Player, Nicklaus and Woodsall completed the feat in their 20s. For that matter, golfs first Grand Slammer, Gene Sarazen, won his first two majors at age 20, sooner even than Spieth. In the journey to the career Grand Slam, the time to take advantage of a head start is always now.

If all this sounds a bit over-caffeinated, its because career Grand Slams in golf are special. They are more rare than in tennis, where eight men (the latest Novak Djokavic) have done it. But more importantly, it can besad to see great players fall one major short. Counting Spieth, 12 players have achieved three legs without getting the fourth. And those for whom valiant attempts at the final have been thwarted by bad luck or multiplying tension or bothespecially Sam Snead with the U.S. Open, and Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson with the PGAhave ended up on a slightly lower tier of the pantheon. It looks like that has happened to Phil Mickelson in his quest for a U.S. Open, and that there is an increasing possibility of this happening to Rory McIlroy at Augusta National.

RELATED: Golf Digest PodcastSpieth's pursuit of the career Grand Slam compared to Tiger

Not that the career Grand Slam is a perfect measure of greatness. Walter Hagen, who won 11 major championships, didnt have a real shot at what evolved into the Grand Slam because the Masters wasnt even played until he was well past his prime. And what of Bobby Jones original Grand Slam in 1930, winning the U.S. Open and Amateur and their British counterparts in one year, which has never been replicated by any golfer over an entire career? That feat, or the still unattained the calendar professional Grand Slam, or even the Tiger Slam of 2000-01, would all have to be more exalted than the career Grand Slam.

In the journey to the career Grand Slam, the time to take advantage ofa head start is always now.

Still, other than those one-offs, theres a good argument that theres no marker in golf better at historically differentiating the best from the rest than the career Grand Slam. It requires some special things. Theres the tennis analogy of the complete game in four different conditions especially the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open. (The PGA might be the favorite set up of the tour pros because its still U.S. Open light).

Then theres overcoming the pressure of finally capturing the last leg, which builds the more years that go by. Even Spieth was attuned to this challenge, conceding that he would have to be careful not to make the PGA an obsession. The con, he said of being just one major away from the career Grand Slam, and what makes it more difficult than just saying its another major, is that its one a year now instead of four a year that that focuses on, if thats what the focus is.

Clearly, getting the final leg is a validator. It means meeting the moment, demonstrating the rare ability to bring out your best golf when it means the most, when the pressure is highest, when the battle is hardest. It takes greatness.

That said, not all career Grand Slams were created equal. Heres how I would rank them, counting down from least to most significant:

5. Gene SarazenThough he will always be a giant figure with seven major championships, Sarazen is golfs greatest beneficiary of retroactive history. Not only did he win the 1935 Masters by getting into a playoff on the wings of holing a 4-wood from 235 yards on the 15th hole on Sunday, but the Masters was far from being considered a major championship, probably not reaching that status until Ben Hogan and Snead played off in 1954. There was no pressure on Sarazen because he didnt even know he was making history.

RELATED: Spieth not finding any negatives in career Grand Slam bid

4. Gary PlayerIndisputably the games greatest international golfer, with nine majors included among his 159 victories worldwide, Player was ruthlessly efficient in clicking off the four majors in six-year period that ended with his victory at the 1965 U.S. Open at Bellerive, in the only time he would win that championship. Its quite possible that no one ever wanted the achievement more. I was aware of the Grand Slam in 1953 because Hogan was my hero in golf, Player said by phone last week, and I knew when he won at Carnoustie he had the four.

The prize was in his head when he won his first major at the 1959 Open Championship, and soon he became determined to beat rivals Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus to the mark. Though he hadnt won a major since the 1962 PGA, he was primed at Bellerive. I was squatting with 325 pounds, the fittest I ever was in my life, Player said. He was going to a church in St. Louis every day and praying for courage. He wore the same black shirt every day, washing in the sink of his hotel room each night. When he got to the course, he devoted a few minutes to standing before the scoreboard, which had past winners names, and envisioned his own. I saw Gary Player, winner, 1965, and Gary Player winner of the Grand Slam, he said. I dont know if any golfer ever, ever, was as focused as I was that week on winning.

And if Player had lost the playoff to Kel Nagel, does he think he might have suffered the same frustrating fate in the U.S. Open as Snead? Oh, no. I would have won it, absolutely no doubt, he said. Of such minds are career Grand Slam winners made.

3. Jack NicklausThe man who would go on to win the equivalent of three career Grand Slams achieved his first one as a forgone conclusion, he was clearly so good. But even Nicklaus confesses an early setback in 1963 at Lytham, where he bogeyed the final two holes to lose by one, created a crisis of confidence in his ability to win the Open Championship. With three legs of the Slam completed, he finished second at St. Andrews in 1964, and still wondered if his high ball flight would always hold him back on the windy linksland.

He seemed to find the key at Muirfield in 1966, but with a three-stroke lead with seven to play, he three-putted from seven feet, missing a 15-inch putt. I experienced one of the most severe mental jolts Ive ever suffered on a golf course, Nicklaus confessed in his autobiography. Jittery is not a strong enough word to describe my feelings. He bogeyed two of the next three holes, but then, as Spieth did at Birkdale, found a way at the 11th hour to go from negative to positive and eeked out a one-stroke win.

Realizing he had won the Slam, Nicklaus was overcome at the trophy presentation. He wrote: Being about to receive something that even I, never much of a self-doubter, had genuinely doubted would ever be mine, was extremely emotional. From that point, the Open Championship became the major where Nicklaus most consistently contended.

2. Ben HoganTrue, the professional Grand Slam hadnt yet become a thing when Hogan won his fourth leg at Carnoustie in 1953 at age 40. In fact, Hogan, who hadnt won the first of his nine majors until he was 34, wasnt thinking career Grand Slam when he made his first trip to the Open Championship. He had gone because friends had urged him to for the good of the game, and for the challenge. Once there, he became engaged with a monastic purpose that entranced the Scots, keeping legs battered by his car accident functioning through long, soaking baths, mastering the nuances of the small British ball and stoically executing with near perfection. His victory remains perhaps golfs supreme example of a one-shot, do-or-die, all-or-nothing, surgical strike that culminated in a glorious mission accomplished. It earned Hogan a ticker-tape parade when he returned to the U.S., and turned out to be his final major-championship victory.

1. Tiger WoodsUntil further notice, his is the most brilliantly dominating career Grand Slam. Its Himalayan peaks remain prominent on golfs landscape: the 1997 Masters (by 12 strokes), the 2000 U.S. Open (by 15 strokes) and the 2000 Open Championship (by eight strokes). But it was the 1999 PGA at Medinah where Woods seemingly inevitable ascendance could have been stalled, and the tricky, seven-foot, left-to-right par putt he made on the 71st hole to maintain a one-stroke lead over Sergio Garcia may go down as the most important putt of Woods career. Any pain Woods suffered in his few close loses in majors for the first 12 years of his career was negligible, but losing at Medinah probably would have left a mark. With appropriate theater, Woods closed out his first Grand Slam with a triumphant march up the 18th at St. Andrews.

If Spieth can claim a fourth leg at Quail Hollow, where would his Grand Slam rank? Third best, behind Woods and Hogan.

Spieth, as the sixth holder, would be the youngest, by eight months. Hes been more stalwart than opportunist, having led or been tied for the lead in 15 of the 70 major championship rounds he has played. But other than his first major win, a wire-to wire job at the 2015 Masters, Spieths victories have been tight ones in which, for all his magic with the short game and putter, his tee-to-green play has lacked the majesty of Woods or Nicklaus or Hogan. Hes also lost the lead late at two Masters, leaving more scar tissue at an early age than Woods, Nicklaus or Player experienced.

Then again, Spieths combination of passionate competitiveness and personal charm is reminiscent of Jones, and engenders a similar degree of public devotion. If he could close out the Slam in Charlotte, his resultant popularity would lift golf and his persona into Jones/Palmer/Woods territory.

It would also install him firmly on the games throne at an early age. Nicklaus and especially Woods showed such a position can be a self-perpetuating mental edge. As good as being No. 1 in the world is, its betterthrough an early career Grand Slamto have proved youre the best when it matters most.

RELATED: The history of Grand Slam pursuits

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Jordan Spieth's epic claret jug celebration

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PGA Championship 2017: Jordan Spieth chases golf immortality - GolfDigest.com

Will You Accept Immortality in a Metal Suit? – Wall Street Pit

Posted on August 28, 2017 by Danzig

Todays advances in science and technology are happening at a breakneck speed.

Genes can now be more accurately edited and modified with Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) technology. It may soon help mankind in curing HIV/AIDS, different types of cancer, and genetic disorders.

Aging can now also be slowed down with stem cells infusion, NAD+ booster pills, and other latest discoveries.

How about immortality?

An organization founded by Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov thinks thats also achievable.

The 2045 Movement, which was established in February 2011, has the support of Russian specialists in the field of robotics, neural interfaces, artificial organs and systems.

According to their website, their team is endeavoring to put up an international research center where work will be devoted in anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling, and brain and consciousness modeling. The knowledge will then enable man to transfer ones consciousness to an artificial carrier or avatar and attain cybernetic immortality.

The organization thinks its the answer to the worlds current problems and our vulnerabilities as a human species.

Heres their timeline for envisioned Avatars that can make man live forever:

Will it be an exciting life, to be a robotic specie?

If you think about the movie Transformers, you may feel a degree of excitement as you imagine yourself almost like Optimus Prime, Bumble Bee, or whoever your favorite character is.

They have intelligence and feelings, and almost indestructible bodies.

Its almost tempting to think, isnt it?

But, if you think more deeply, what youve come to love about the Transformers was not their almost indestructible bodies but their sense of humanity the ability to love, to be loyal, and to show gratitude.

They felt compassion for those who were weaker. They fought because they were needed.

When every single one of us becomes strong, powerful, indestructible and independent to the point of not needing anyone other than a robotic doctor to occasionally fix or update our robotic bodies will we really reach the point where well loose the ability to love, to feel compassion, to feel happiness because were needed? Considering all these elements the next question would be: Will you accept immortality in a metal suit?

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Will You Accept Immortality in a Metal Suit? - Wall Street Pit

Introducing the VeloNews Monuments of Gravel – VeloNews

Posted on March 2, 2020 by Danzig

We went in search of the Monuments of Gravel: the five gravel races that carry the most prestige to win. This week we will be rolling out stories around each race and why our panel of experts voted it onto the list.

We love the bone-jarring cobblestones outside Roubaix, the daredevil descent off the Poggio, and the leg-cracking attacks at La Redoute. Our adrenaline rushes during the chaotic battle on the Oude Kwaremont, and we are mesmerized by the punishing tempo up the Madonna de Ghisallo.

We love pro road cyclings five Monuments: Paris-Roubaix, the Tour of Flanders, Milano-Sanremo, Il Lombardia, and Lige-Bastogne-Lige. Why do these races deserve the lofty title of Monument, as well as our collective affection? The title comes from each races lengthy history and punishingly difficult distance and parcours.

Thats not why we love the races, of course. The Monuments win our affection because of the prestige bestowed to the victor. With immortality on the line, the best riders battle each other with dramatic gusto just for a chance to win.

Its no secret that American cycling is experiencing a renaissance, with gravel and mixed-surface events surging in popularity across the country. Hundreds of these races now dot the competition calendar. Of course, not all of these events are equal in terms of difficulty, history, or prestige. There are some races that have already captured the imagination of participants, media, and elite riders.

Thus, at the onset of 2020 we set out to determine the Monuments of Gravel: the five gravel races that stand atop the growing list of events as the most prestigious to win. Defining the road Monuments is relatively easy: The five are the oldest and longest-running events on the calendar. Yet doing so for gravel is less straightforward. Is a 350-mile race with a handful of participants more deserving than a 150-mile race that attracts thousands? Whats harder: 100 miles on flat gravel or 70 miles with 10,000 feet of climbing?

In the end, we reached out to the gravel community to help us determine our list. Over the past two months we have posed the question to a list of elite riders, all of whom have won or challenged for the victory at the major events on the gravel calendar.

Our definition for what event deserved to be a Monument was simple: Which races hold the most prestige to win?

No, not the longest, not the oldest, not the hardest, not the race with the most participants, or the tastiest feed zone snacks, or the best post-race party. Which are the races that mean the most to win?

We asked the riders for their list of five races, and we tallied the votes. One race was a unanimous qualifier; one more received overwhelming votes, even if riders debated whether it was actually a true gravel event. Two more races were heavy favorites.

As for the final Monument of Gravel, we came up against a dead tie between two events. And thus, on Friday, we will let you, the reader, decide.

Stay tuned to velonews.com this week to see which races made our Monuments of Gravel list, and read about the promoters, athletes, and gear that have come to define the events and push them forward. We will be revealing one Monument per day. And, once youve read our list, please cast your vote for which gravel event should be our fifth and final Monument.

This year we will be covering each Monument thoroughly, bringing you the stories in the lead-up to each event as well as the drama from inside each race.

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Introducing the VeloNews Monuments of Gravel - VeloNews

Holi Festival 2020: how the thwarting of a Hindu demon king led to the colourful celebration – The Telegraph

Posted on March 7, 2020 by Danzig

Holi, a traditional Hindu festival whichcelebrates the beginning of spring as well as the triumph of good over evil, is set to takeplace next week.

Although the festival originated in India and is still widely celebrated there as a religious festival, it has been adopted in many places around the world.

Here is everything you need to know about it, from where it came from to why the powder, known as gulal, is thrown.

Every year the festival celebrations take place over two days, beginningaround the time of the full moon that comes in 'Phalguna' (between the end of February and the middle of March). This year, the Holi Festival takes place on Monday March 9,the same day theWorm Moon will grace our skies, and Tuesday March 10.

The first evening is known asHolika Dahan, or Chhoti Holi. Festival-goers traditionally gather around a bonfire to celebrate the victory of good over evil. They perform religious rituals, which include prayers that any evil inside of them is destroyed.

The following day is calledHoli, or Rangwali Holi. This is when the famous colourful powdersare thrown, mixing with water from water guns and water balloons so that the powder sticks to people.

Holi's different celebrations come from various Hindu legends, although one is widely believed to be the most likely origin.

In it, the celebration's name refers to Holika,the sister of the Hindu demon king Hiranyakashipu. The demon king was granted immortality with five powers:

When his immortality turned him evil and he began to kill anyone who disobeyed him,his son, Prahlad, decided to kill him. When the king found out, he asked his sister Holika for help; in their plan she would wear a cloak which stopped her from being harmed by fire and take Prahlad into a bonfire with her.

However, the cloak flew from Holika's shoulders while she was in the fire and covered Prahlad; he was protected but she burnt to death.

In the legend, the Lord Vishnu then appeared to killHiranyakashipu by sidestepping his five powers.

He took the form of Narasimha, who was half-human and half-lion; he met him on a doorstep, which is neither indoors nor outdoors; he appeared at dusk, which is neither daylight nor dusk; he placed his father on his lap, which is neither land, water nor air; and he attacked him with his lion claws, which are neither projectile nor handheld weapons.

While Hiranyakashipu and Holika came to represent evil, Vishnu and Prahlad came to represent good. The story shows the victory of good over evil, which is why it is tied to the festival.

The other most popular origin of the festival is the legend of Krishna. The Hindu deity, embarrassed by his dark blue skin, told his mother he was worried his love Radha would not accept him. She told him to colour Radha's facewhatever colour he wanted; when he did, they became a couple.

The coloured powder - or gulal -thrown on the second day of the festival comes from the legend of Krishna. Anyone at Holi is fair game to be covered in the perfumedpowder as a celebration of Krishna and Radha's love, regardless of age or social status. The powder also signifiesthe coming of spring and all the new colours it brings to nature.

Historically, the gulal was made of turmeric, paste and flower extracts, but today synthetic versions are largely used.

Thefour mainpowder colours are used to represent different things. Red reflects love and fertility, blue is the colour of Krishna, yellow is the colour of turmeric and green symbolises spring and new beginnings.

Peshwari naan

A delicious side dishfor aHoli Festival feast. The coconut in this naan bread also makes it a great sweetener to any spicy meal.

Sweet potato and lentil curry

This healthy, yet tasty, curry, is perfectfor a Holi Festival-inspired lunch.

Red lentil tarka dal

Packed with garlic, ginger and chillies, this dish can be enjoyed as a soothing soup on its own, or with a dollop of yogurt.

Spring onion bhajis

These crispy onion bhajis, made with spring onions, shallots, fresh coriander,turmeric and chilli flakes,offer a zip of freshness.

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Holi Festival 2020: how the thwarting of a Hindu demon king led to the colourful celebration - The Telegraph

Scientists successfully created a cybernetic neural network – The Next Web

Posted on March 14, 2020 by Danzig

An international team of researchers spread out over three labs in Switzerland, Italy, and the UK have successfully joined artificial neurons and an organic neuron to form the first operational biological-artificial hybrid neural network.

Theyve made a cyborg.

The team set out to recreate a classic experiment showing how neurons can learn by transferring information through synapses.

In a classic neural network, various neurons light up in response to stimulus. Over time the neurons will require more or less stimulation to fire, thus demonstrating how neural networks adapt and learn.

Read: Scientists discover strong evidence of life on Mars

Weve studied this concept in organic neural networks such as those found in living brains, but this is the first time its been done with both living and artificial neurons.

Per the teams research paper:

We demonstrate a three-neuron brain-silicon network where memristive synapses undergo long-term potentiation or depression driven by neuronal firing rates.

The experiment involved three different neurons across three different geographical locations, connected via the Internet using standard TCP/IP.

The first, a silicon-based artificial neuron, resided in Switzerland where researchers used it to send information to another artificial neuron in the UK.

Connecting the two human-made neurons was an organic neuron derived from a lab rats brain in Italy which served as a bridge for information.

The scientists demonstrated the hybrid neural networks ability to learn by modifying the way the data was sent, thus causing the artificial neuron at the end of the transmission to require more or less stimulation to light up.

Theoretically, this experiment could be expanded exponentially. With enough artificial bridges mimicking natural synapses we may one day be able to emulate entire brain regions.

The implications could go as far as total-conversion cyborgs that retain only the bare minimum of organic brain material essentially, this could mean immortality.

But, more likely in this century, it means scientists may one day be able to repair damaged or abnormal brain regions. This could mean a cure for paralysis, dementia, and other brain disorders, even those currently considered irreparable.

Theres still plenty of work to be done. It takes hundreds of thousands of connections for even simple brain circuits to operate, the three-neuron approach is little more than proof of the concept.

But when full-on cyborgs walk the Earth, theyll trace their origins back to this research.

You can read the full paper here.

H/t: Singularity Hub

Published March 11, 2020 22:47 UTC

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Scientists successfully created a cybernetic neural network - The Next Web

Tyson Fury shares amazing shirtless snaps showing body transformation over last two years as he thanks fans – The Sun

Posted on March 1, 2020 by Danzig

TYSON FURY has again taken to social media to show off his remarkable body transformation over the last two years.

The 31-year-old capped off his comeback last weekend by knocking out Deontay Wilder to become WBC heavyweight champion of the world.

Posting four shirtless pictures illustrating his differing weights to Instagram, the star wrote: "Been an amazing comeback over the last 2 years. Thank you for the support."

Last week's victory over Wilder was the culmination of a remarkable journey back to stardom, having previously been in the boxing wilderness amid his battles with mental health issues away from the ring.

At his heaviest, the Brit hero had ballooned to 27 stone.

But with help from boxing legend Ricky Hatton, and latterly Ben Davison, Fury battled his way back to fitness and returned to the sport in June 2018 when he fought Sefer Seferi.

The Gypsy King has since seen off Francesco Pianeta, Tom Schwarz, Otto Wallin and Wilder on his way to boxing immortality.

Ahead of his first clash with the Bronze Bomber in December 2018, friend and camp manager Timothy Allcock was his personal cook - with peanut butter chicken on the menu virtually every night.

For the second Wilder fight, however, Fury turned to Conor McGregor's nutritionist George Lockhart.

And the former US marine and MMA fighter rustled up a diet to get Fury into pristine shape in order to definitively defeat Wilder once and for all.

It involved SIX meals a day - including two lunches and two dinners.

Fury would eat Greek yogurt with berries for breakfast, before tucking into salmon cakes with jalapenos, cilantro and more yogurt.

Then would come skewered chicken with tzatziki sauce for his second lunch - before moving on his dinners.

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First up he would wolf down a red meat curry with turmeric, before devouring apple and cranberry stuffed pork loin with butternut squash, quinoa, walnuts and spinach.

Finally, for supper would come sriracha honey salmon laid out on a bed of quinoa and rice.

The bulky, powerful star weighed in at 19 stone, 270lbs for the hotly-anticipated rematch, and was able to overpower and outbox Wilder in Las Vegas to clinch the WBC title - justifying his position as the most talked about man in boxing.

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Tyson Fury shares amazing shirtless snaps showing body transformation over last two years as he thanks fans - The Sun

Westworld seasons 1 and 2 recap: Everything to remember – CNET

Posted on March 2, 2020 by Danzig

Evan Rachel Wood plays Dolores in Westworld.

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

It's been nearly two years since season 2 of Westworldcame to a confusing end. That's two years to forget some of the finer details of a story that jumps backward and forward in time and explores big themes like free will. Instead of retracing the complex narratives via your detective's "crazy wall," catch up with our guide to seasons 1 and 2.

We'll go through the main characters' overall storylines, focusing on where they end up at the end of season 2. Once you're done here, you should be ready to watch season 3, premiering on March 15 on HBO, without getting lost in the maze.

Now playing: Watch this: Westworld season 3: Incite vs. Delos

11:10

Dolores and Arnold (Jeffrey Wright) at Escalante.

Our Alice in Wonderland-looking robot host Dolores Abernathy (Evan Rachel Wood) spends this season wrestling with traumatic flashbacks she doesn't yet understand. She begins searching for Escalante, a town with a church that keeps surfacing in her memories. Finding it in the final episode, she remembers what took place there years ago: A massacre. And she carried it out.

Early in Westworld's creation, theme park co-founder Arnold Weber (Jeffrey Wright) realized his robot hosts were gaining sentience. Afraid of what the park guests might do to them, he installed the violent Wyatt personality into Dolores' drive with instructions to destroy the other hosts, then himself, then herself.

Yet despite this massacre, Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkinshaving way too much fun playing the other founder of the park) revives Dolores and opens the park anyway. In Escalante for the second time, and having reached full consciousness and gained autonomy, Dolores shoots Ford. But little does she know this was Ford's plan all along: He wanted to play gamemaster and facilitate the robot uprising.

Jeffrey Wright plays Bernard, aka Arnold.

Bernard Lowe, the park's head programmer who helps create the hosts, is Ford's right-hand man. Unbeknownst to Bernard, he's an exact replica of Arnold, created by Ford to assist him following the real Arnold's death.

At the end of season 1, Bernard reels from a murder he's forced to commit under Ford's control. This leads him to the revelation he's really a host -- "Bernard Lowe" is an anagram of Arnold Weber. Bernard confronts Ford to find the truth of who he is, resolving to rebel against Ford and help release all the sentient hosts from the park.

Ed Harris plays William, aka the Man in Black.

En route to Escalante, Dolores encounters William (Jimmi Simpson), future collaborator with the Delos corporation, which runs Westworld operations. When William and Dolores fall in love, William's future brother-in-law Logan Delos (Ben Barnes) cuts Dolores open to remind William she's just a machine and his real fiancee is waiting back home. This triggers something dark in William and his transformation into the sadistic Man in Black begins.

Intent on finding more to Westworld as well as meaning to his own life, the Man in Black obsessively returns to the park over many years. He searches for the center of a fabled "maze" until Ford informs him the maze isn't for him, it's for the hosts. The maze is a representation of Arnold's theory that hosts can't reach full consciousness on a linear path.

Thandie Newton plays Maeve.

We first meet host Maeve (Thandie Newton) as the Madame of Sweetwater, but in an earlier narrative, she was a homesteader with a daughter. On his philosophical rampage, the Man in Black murdered her child, leaving Maeve so profoundly distraught Ford was forced to reassign her a new role.

But the memory has stuck, triggered by certain images and phrases. Whenever Maeve is killed by guests, sometimes by her own design, she wakes up in the underground lab used to restore damaged hosts. Maeve wades through her confused state with the help of a sympathetic technician named Felix Lutz (Leonardo Nam) who bumps up her intelligence to the point where she essentially has mind control over the other hosts. Despite using her new abilities to find a way out of the park, she's halted by yearning to reunite with her daughter.

Teddy (James Marsden) and Dolores.

Dolores, aka "the death-bringer," spends this season gathering a small army and blowing things up on her quest to take over the human world. She and her followers end up in the storied Valley Beyond, aka the Sublime. It's a virtual heaven created by Ford where the consciousnesses of hosts can live freely away from humans. The Valley Beyond is also the location of the Forge, a database which houses replicas of the minds of every guest to the park. This is part of the Delos corporation's experiments with human immortality. Dolores, being Dolores, wipes the guests' data.

She then escapes Westworld with a Delos evacuation team, but not before using a satellite uplink to transfer the hosts and the Sublime to a secret location. Inhabiting a replicant body of Delos executive Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), Dolores makes it to Arnold's home in the real world, along with Bernard. There, Dolores finds a machine that prints hosts, making herself a new body (the same as the Evan Rachel Wood Dolores we recognize) and implanting an unknown host into Charlotte's body.

The Man in Black needs a new hobby.

Logan's dad James Delos has been experimenting with housing his mind in a host's body to achieve immortality. To ease the transition, Delos' host body stays in a test tube apartment caged in glass. William interviews each host iteration of Delos, but Delos always fails the cognitive test and the body is incinerated. After the latest iteration of Delos fails, William abandons the project (read: lets the malfunctioning Delos wreak havoc).

All this has consequences, and William's daughter Emily (Katja Herbers) pays a visit to the park to confront her father about his secret project. Mistaking her for a host, William shoots her in cold blood. A grieving William, severely injured in clashes with Dolores and Maeve, is just about facing his death bed. But in a post-credits scene, he appears alive in the Forge, only it's the far future and he may or may not be a host. Joining him is none other than Emily, who also appears to have been replicated.

Maeve in Shogun World.

Maeve's journey to find her daughter arguably brings the best episode of season 2, where she explores her host-controlling powers in a world based on the Edo period of feudal Japan. Gathering a party of her own, Maeve eventually escapes Shogun World and reaches her old homestead, only there she discovers her daughter no longer knows who she is, now living with a different host as her mother.

Still, Maeve wishes only for her safety. Maeve and her party are caught up in a battle between the Ghost Nation or host "Indians" and the Delos security team on their way to the Valley Beyond, otherwise known as Eden. Sacrificing herself, Maeve sees her daughter safely through the Door to heaven. But there's still hope for Maeve's survival (we've already seen her in a season 3 trailer), as remaining scientists are tasked with salvaging bodies from the battleground.

Luke Hemsworth plays Stubbs.

What happened to the other characters at the end of season 2?

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Westworld seasons 1 and 2 recap: Everything to remember - CNET

Rozner: Andre Dawson says ‘cheating is cheating,’ and Astros should vacate title – Chicago Daily Herald

Posted on February 22, 2020 by Danzig

Andre Dawson has had 18 knee surgeries.

That includes three knee replacements. Yeah, one of them had to be done twice because the first one didn't take.

Thanks very much.

It could be argued that the 65-year-old gave to the game of baseball everything his body would allow, so when he speaks you can be certain it's with love and concern for the sport.

And on the issue of the Houston Astros, he isn't at all vague.

"They should forfeit the title," Dawson said. "It's like I felt all along about steroids.

"Those guys reaped the rewards and they should suffer the ramifications. They got elite status and made a lot of money and achieved all the accolades.

"Cheating is cheating. It's not fair and you should pay a price for that. They should take away the title."

Dawson was taken aback when informed that commissioner Rob Manfred thought the World Series trophy was nothing more than an irrelevant "piece of metal" and not worth retrieving from the Astros.

"It's much more than a piece of metal to all of us who played," Dawson said. "It's the prestige of winning and being a part of history. It's the glory of getting through an entire season and being the last team standing.

"It's something that you live with for the rest of your life when you win, and it's something that you live with for the rest of your life if you don't get that chance."

There are some very familiar names on that unpleasant list, the leaders of a club no one wanted to be a part of, the men who appeared in the most MLB games in history without ever playing in a World Series game.

Topping the list is Rafael Palmeiro, second is Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. and third is future Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki.

Not surprisingly, there are many Cubs in the Top 30.

Having retired as the leader, Dawson is No. 4 all-time with 2,627 games and Ernie Banks -- who also retired as the leader -- is No. 5.

Billy Williams is No. 7, Ron Santo is at No. 21 and Ryne Sandberg is No. 28. They have all been elected to the Hall of Fame, but not one of them got what they wanted most, to play in the Fall Classic.

White Sox great Luke Appling is No. 10 with 2,422 games played -- retiring in 1950 atop the list -- and fellow Hall of Famer Frank Thomas is 17th. At least Thomas was with the club and got a ring when the Sox won the 2005 World Series, but he was not on the roster due to injury.

Ask any of those mentioned above and they'll tell you they feel incomplete, even having achieved immortality and a place in baseball's most hallowed museum.

"I got close a couple times," Dawson said of the '81 Expos and '89 Cubs. "Those are things you think about every year when you watch teams celebrate.

"That's the dream when you have a club that you know can go far, but a lot of things have to go right and you need some luck.

"You've got to have the personnel. I don't care how good you are individually. Ernie can attest to that. If you don't have the personnel, it's not happening.

"There's no use beating yourself up. It's just hard when you play against your peers and you see them get there. For some of us, you just have to accept that it wasn't meant to be."

That drives home even deeper the foolishness of Manfred diminishing the trophy.

To hear the pain in Dawson's voice and to have seen up close the pain he endured, you can't help but feel for a guy who wanted it that much.

"If I had to do it all over again, I would do it again," Dawson says with no hesitation. "My knee problems helped build my work ethic, and my attitude was to get that uniform back every year, as opposed to them taking it away from me.

"After that, it was all a bonus."

It doesn't minimize his distaste for those who used PEDs or swiped a championship.

"People do stuff for selfish reasons, for personal gain," Dawson said. "But now they're gonna have to deal with the fallout, and that fallout can come in a lot of ways.

"It's going to be pretty uncomfortable for them this season and probably for a long time. Like with steroids, probably some of them will never get away from it.

"They knew what they were doing and they knew it was wrong, or else they wouldn't have tried to hide it."

True enough.

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Rozner: Andre Dawson says 'cheating is cheating,' and Astros should vacate title - Chicago Daily Herald

The 100-year life: how to prolong a healthy mind – The Guardian

Posted on March 1, 2020 by Danzig

Sci-fi aside, how long will I live?

Living to 100 will soon become a routine fact of (long) life. Life expectancies have been rising by up to three months a year since 1840 and although gains in the UK began to slow in 2011, it is still estimated that more than half the babies born in wealthier countries since 2000 may reach their 100th birthdays.

It is an impressive increase: in the early 1900s, the probability of a baby reaching 100 was 1%. A newborn in the UK today has a 50% chance of living to 105. There were 3,600 centenarians in 1986. Today there are some 15,000.

You do not have to be a newborn to benefit from this trend of increased longevity, though. A 60-year-old in the west today has an even chance of living to 90 and a 40-year-old can expect to live to 95.

But the longevity boost is not done yet: it is generally agreed that the natural ceiling to human life is somewhere around 115. Others say that even without cutting-edge AI or other technological wizardry, we could live far longer. Opinion broadly divides into three groups: the levellers who say we are at peak lifespan now. The extrapolators who argue that technology and education have made their biggest leaps but can squeak us up to a ceiling of 120 before levelling off for good. And the accelerators those determined to defeat ageing, who believe we are on the verge of major breakthroughs in scientific and technological research that will increase longevity, pushing us into the realms of immortality.

Life expectancy has been increasing since we cracked infant mortality in the 19th century. Economy, technology, healthcare and education have all combined with vaccines, safer childbirth and medical advances in the care of stroke and heart attack patients to keep the relentless pace of increasing longevity going strong.

But the growth in life expectancy began to slow in 2011 in the UK and people live longer in more than two dozen other countries.

There has not been a big medical or health gamechanger in the past couple of decades. While some argue that we should celebrate the longest lifespans that humans have ever attained, others warn that illness and infirmity risk turning long lives into slow, miserable declines.

In his essay on ageing, De Senectute, Cicero says there are four reasons why people write off old age: it stops you working, it makes your body weak, it denies you pleasure and every day is one step closer to death. Then he shows why each argument is wrong. The old retain their wits quite well, he notes, so long as they exercise them.

Dan Buettner coined the term blue zones for five regions he identified as having populations who live healthier and longer lives than others (they are Okinawa in Japan, Sardinia in Italy, the Nicoya peninsula in Costa Rica, Loma Linda in California and Ikaria in Greece). The diets of those living in these regions, he discovered, consist almost entirely of minimally processed plant-based foods mostly wholegrains, greens, nuts, tubers and beans. Meat is eaten, on average, five times a month. They drink mostly water, herbal teas, coffee and some wine. They drink little or no cows milk.

Other scientists have added different ideas to the mix. Sufficient sleep and a sense of purpose are important but exercise is key at least 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity each week, plus twice-weekly muscle-strengthening sessions, to reap health and longevity benefits.

Having said that, short bouts of light physical activity, such as walking and cleaning, have been shown to increase the lifespans of older people. And a study published last January found that simply moving instead of sitting for 30 minutes each day could reduce the risk of early death by 17%. Some research suggests that club sports such as tennis and soccer are best for longevity because they also encourage social interaction, another vital ingredient to longevity.

At conferences on longevity, it is immediately obvious during the morning breaks that the buffets remain largely untouched and that everyone drinks their tea and coffee inky black, disdaining even a drop of milk. Most serious seekers of longevity also practice both calorific fasting and intermittent fasting.

In a nutshell, the approach is to eat 30% fewer calories and fast for 16 hours a day, though this may not be appropriate for certain vulnerable groups. In essence, it means skipping breakfast and not making up for the missed meal during the day.

No one knows quite why intermittent fasting works. The best guess is that it has something to do with metabolic switching and cellular stress resistance causing the body to increase production of antioxidants.

Repeated studies on mice going back a century seem to prove that it works on rodents, at least. Last December, the New England Journal of Medicine reviewed all the studies in this area and concluded that a combination of fasting and calorific reduction does slow ageing, extend lifespan and counteract age-related disorders, including cardiovascular disease, cancers, diabetes and neurological disorders such as Alzheimers, Parkinsons and stroke. Animal models show that intermittent fasting improves health throughout the lifespan, the paper concluded.

The problem with gauging its efficacy on humans is that, as the paper said: It remains to be determined whether people can maintain intermittent fasting for years and potentially accrue the benefits seen in animal models.

US scientists are raising funds to launch a five-year clinical trial of a product called metformin, commonly prescribed for pre-diabetics and diabetics. Longevity advocates believe it may have a side effect slowing the development of age-related diseases.

Im not telling everyone to go out and take it until our clinical trial proves it does what I believe it does, said Dr Nir Barzilai, the director of the Institute for Ageing at New Yorks Albert Einstein College of Medicine. But if our trials come back with the results I expect then, yes, I believe everyone should take this drug.

Even more niche are the the promises of Dr Aubrey de Gray, a gerontologist who founded the Sens (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence) Research Foundation with the goal of undoing ageing.

Sens is defined by a focus on repairing molecular and cellular damage rather than on merely slowing down its accumulation, he said. The logistics of indefinitely healthy ageing will, he believes, be simple and affordable: Mostly itll be injections once a decade.

The latest epigenetic clock, DNAm PhenoAge, will shortly hit the shelves. Epigenetic clocks a form of molecular augury were first developed in 2011 and claim to offer a glimpse into the future. By analysing the pattern of chemical chains that attach to the DNA in your cells, these clocks apparently reveal how swiftly you are ageing and perhaps even how much longer you will live.

The big sell with these tests is that while DNA is fixed at birth, our epigenetic patterns change according to our lifestyles. The promise of those who produce these clocks for commercial use is that they enable us to calibrate our ageing.

The tests havent been independently evaluated and do not need to be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration but that has not stopped some life insurance companies using the tests to predict lifespans. Researchers have jumped on board, too, using the clocks to test anti-ageing drugs and to look for an anti-ageing diet.

Talk of immortality was outlaw science until a couple of decades ago but now it is attracting serious interest and big bucks: in 2013, Google invested $1.5bn (1.1bn) in an entire division, Calico, which is devoted to solving death. The PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel has given millions of dollars to De Greys foundation.

Instead of focusing on why, say, we get cancer or have a stroke and how to treat each distinct condition, this branch of medical research argues for all these conditions to be regarded as symptoms of one far larger and deadly disease: ageing itself. Instead of trying to treat all these different diseases that develop as people age, the argument goes, we should be trying to treat that one big disease. If we can do that, all the so-called age-related conditions that currently harm so many and cost so much will be by definition eradicated.

No one is saying it is going to be easy. This branch of research attempts to tackle ageing inside every cell of the body. In other words, change the whole genetic makeup of the human species. There are plenty of claims that we can already slow down the ageing of cells or senescence but the most radical adherents claim that the first person to live to 1,000 has already been born.

The Miracle of Fasting, Paul and Patricia Bragg

How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease, Michael Grege

The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Whove Lived the Longest, Dan Buettner

Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Dont Have To, David Sinclair

The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer, Dr Elizabeth Blackburn and Dr Elissa Epel

100 Days to a Younger Brain, Dr Sabina Brennan

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The 100-year life: how to prolong a healthy mind - The Guardian

Rizal and Galds The Manila Times – The Manila Times

Posted on February 18, 2020 by Danzig

Jorge Mojarro

IT is well-known that Jos Rizal was, unavoidably, an avid reader. He explains in some of his letters how he preferred to spend his money on books rather than food. His curiosity was more typical of an humanist from Renaissance times that of a middle-class man from 19th-century Calamba. There was no topic that was of no interest for him: ancient languages, medicine, anthropology, history, religion, etc. His mind was in a permanent state of effervescence, always willing to be fed with new intellectual stimuli.

Rizal accepted with superb serenity his martyrdom, but he was not certainly looking for immortality through his unfair execution, but through his writings. I have argued elsewhere that the genius of Noli Me Tangere did not come from, lets say, divine inspiration, but from a life devoted to books, especially literature of fiction.

The topic of an impossible love between two beautiful souls, both of impeccable moral standards, was very common in 19th-century Latin American novels. The most well-known among those was Mara (1867) by the Colombian Jorge Isaacs, a novel so successful that it has obtained more than 200 editions until the present. We do not have any evidence of Rizal reading Latin American novels, but ultimately, the most relevant issue here is that the Spanish-speaking intellectual class shared the same worldview and very similar political and artistic concerns.

Nnay (1885) by Pedro Paterno, a Filipino novel that certainly needs more credit, was surely an influence on Rizal, who probably did the proofreading before going to print. What in Nnay is a lachrymose romance between two lovers in a very idealized and exoticized Philippines, peppered with adventurous scenes and information regarding local customs, Rizal transformed into a literary masterpiece where all social classes are mercilessly criticized. The parallelisms between Nnay and Mara Clara, Carlos Mabagsic and Crisstomo Ibarra are quite evident, but more relevant even is the parallelism between two original, enigmatic and very likeable characters: Berto and Elas.

But who was the most popular, most read and most prestigious novelist in Madrid in the second half of the 19th century? Benito Prez Galds, whose life is being commemorated this year in Spain as he passed away exactly 100 years ago. And certainly, Galds must have been a major literary influence on Jos Rizal. Galds was born in the Canary Islands and moved to Madrid at 19 years old in search of literary glory. His career began when he was allowed to publish his first pieces in the most important newspapers. He published more than 80 novels, 20 dramas, plus several travel books, essays and a collection of his pieces as a journalist. Most importantly, he was a staunch anticlerical novelist, and priests are generally given a very negative role in all his novels. With the exception of Miguel de Cervantes, there is no novelist like Galds in Spanish literature; his novels keep being read until today and some of them have even become popular movies. Belonging to the realist trend, there is something in the plots and characters of Galds that still appeal pleasantly to the readers of today.

Rizal, who was in Madrid while Galds was in the summit of his literary career and was extremely updated in literary novelties, should have read some of his works. Moreover, there is a novel by Galds whose plot reflects somehow one of the problems pointed out by Rizal in Noli Me Tangere: the dramatic and persistent interference of priests in extra-religious issues. The novel is titled Doa Perfecta (1876), and the plot is as follows: a marriage of convenience is arranged by Doa Perfecta between her daughter Rosario and her cousin, Pepe Rey, in order to keep the properties of the family united. What was supposed to be a cold relationship led by mutual interest becomes unexpectedly a passionate true love. However, the priest, Inocencio, had better plans for Rosario: to marry his nephew. Doa Perfecta, a devoted believer, accepts the plan of the priest against the will of the two lovers, and a tragedy ensues. It seems that this Inocencio could very well have served as an inspiration to Rizal to create his evil Padre Dmaso. It wouldnt be difficult for us to imagine Rizal reading the novel while thinking about his mother country and its problems.

The fact that Rizal found inspiration in many books is not an accusation of a lack of originality, not at all, but an acknowledgment of his creative impetus. Reading the most popular novelists of his century, he was able to create something completely new and perfectly shaped to the situation of the Philippines. More importantly, it wouldnt be an exaggeration to claim that Noli Me Tangere came to be a masterpiece superior to the previous novels that may have inspired it.

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Rizal and Galds The Manila Times - The Manila Times

Alex Ovechkin has always been unapologetically unique on the path to greatness – The Athletic

Posted on February 22, 2020 by Danzig

Maybe its the time a light stand nearly conked Alex Ovechkin in the head during an impromptu video shoot before the 2011 Winter Classic.

Or the time we had lunch and he was happily sporting a kind of ode to vagrants fashion look.

Or the time we spent the evening watching the Washington Capitals captain display his bowling prowess along with some of his Russian teammates. Think a southpaw version of Fred Flintstone and youve got an idea of the vibe.

With yet another historic moment for Ovechkin passing on Saturday afternoon as he reached 700 career goals, these images play into the impressions of the Washington sports icon as indelibly as any of the dozens of scorching one-timers from the left circle or his under-appreciated deft passes that more often than not caught opposing defenders and netminders befuddled.

When you reach this rarified strata within the game there is a tendency to speak only in terms of the mythic. And make no mistake...

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Alex Ovechkin has always been unapologetically unique on the path to greatness - The Athletic

God of War 2: What is Ragnarok? – GameRant

Posted on February 22, 2020 by Danzig

Ragnarok is the well-known end of times associated with Norse mythology and a recurring theme in Kratos and Atreus' epic quest for 2018's God of War.With the game's ending foreshadowing the event playing a major rolein God of War 2,it seems clear that it will play a big role in the game, but whatdoes Ragnaroktruly mean for the God of War universe?

God of War's description of Ragnarok isrelatively close to thereal-lifeNorselegends. Historically, Ragnarok represents a cataclysmic eventforeseen by the giantess seer Groa. Also known as "The Twilight of the Gods," Ragnarok issaid to culminate with the deaths of most of the Norse Gods, including Odin, Thor, Freya, and Loki (who we know as Atreus), devastating the human world of Midgard with natural disasters andultimately wiping out all life, allowing the world to be reborn anew.

RELATED:God Of War PS4: 10 Storylines That Were Never Resolved

The prophecy tells that the firstevent to signal the coming apocalypse is the death of the god Baldur, the near-immortalson of Freya and brother of Thor, which will bring about a three-year winter known as "Fimbulwinter." As seen in the climactic moments ofGod of War's story, Baldur is turned mortal by accidentally pricking himself on one of Atreus' mistletoe arrowheads, the only thing capable of reversing the curse of immortality placed upon him by his mother. Finally able to die, Kratos slays Baldur to prevent him from strangling Freya. As Baldurdies,the first snowflakes of Fimbulwinter begin to fall, signaling that Ragnark has begun.

So what does this mean for God of War 2?The prophecy is vague about when certainpredictionswill occur, but the epic events depicted are more than enough to get players excited forGod of War 2. Skoll and Hati - twoenormous wolves - will devour the sun and moon, the fire giant Surtr will burn Asgard to the ground with a flaming sword, Odin and the wolf Fenrir will slay each other in battle, and Thor will battle Jormungandr, hittingThe World Serpent so hard that it gets sent back in time.

The most intriguing of the giants' predictions can be seen on one of the murals that Kratos and Atreus pass upon arriving in Jotunheim at the end ofGod of War. Thepainting shows Kratos, supposedly dead or dying, as Atreus kneels over his body, the World Serpent flying out of his mouth. While it's hard to imagine how this is going to play out, the fact that Kratos and Atreus have seen the God of War's apparent death is sure to influence their relationship in the sequel.

While the prophecy of Ragnarok does promise a great deal of chaos, it's important to note that, unlike the murals, the future is not necessarily set in stone. Kratos asserts throughoutGod of War thatjust because something is prophecized does not mean that it is sure to happen.The truth of this is witnessed firsthand when Kratos kills Baldur and brings about Fimbulwinter over one hundred years before the giants predicted. Butjust because the events of Ragnarok can be sped up, does that mean they can be stopped or changed altogether? The way the first game ends, it sure looks like Gods like Thor and Freya are eager to speed up Kratos' demise, but for now, fans can only speculate as they await the much anticipated sequel toGod of War.

God of War 2is rumored to be in development.

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God of War 2: What is Ragnarok? - GameRant

PLAYLIST: A celebration of dance pop and the immortality of ‘Tala’ – Rappler

Posted on January 13, 2020 by Danzig

MANILA, Philippines Arguably the most inspirational song of the decade is something none of us could have predicted: Sarah Geronimo's "Tala" yes, that LSS-inducing song people have been dancing to all over the internet.

The song was released as the lead single on Sarah's 2015 album, The Great Unknown and it made a huge impact on landing. Critics warmly received the way the song infused mainstream pop with a tribal feel in the percussions. And fans couldn't get enough of the catchy chorus that sang, of course, of Filipino listeners' favorite subject, love.

When the "Tala" music video was released in June 2016, the song made even more of a dent in Pinoy pop culture as the nation beheld their beloved wholesome ate Sarah then still known as the Pop Princess showing off a totally different side of herself.

It certainly wasn't like the jump Britney Spears made going from "Sometimes" to "Slave 4 U." But the video with Sarah impressively nailing some tricky dance sequences in a tattoeed bodysuit cemented the idea (if her two previous hits "Kilometro" and "Ikot-Ikot" hadn't already) that Sarah was a talented triple threat who does not come to play.

Over time though, the "Tala" hype slowly faded as OPM gave way to folk-pop and funk-rock. For 3 years, the shine of "Tala" remained largely forgotten by mainstream listeners occassionally being taken out of the baul for the odd cover here and there.

Of course, on the drag circuit, it was a different story and many, including Sarah herself, credit the reemergence of the song to the LGBTQ+ community, and particularly to Bench Hipolito, a drag queen and Sarah Geronimo impersonator, who featured the song in many of her performances.

By late 2019, years after its initial release, "Tala" had become ubiquitous once again.

Pretty much everyone who can follow the choreography (and even some who can't) have shared their own dance covers online. Even inmates at the San Juan City Jail got in on the action.

Sunday variety show ASAP Natin 'To even held a "Grand Tala Day" to celebrate the song that has become a national obssession 4 years after it was first released.

By this point it's safe to say that "Tala" has eclipsed its own impact when it first came out and we're all for it.

In fact, we are so for it , that we've compiled a bunch of "Tala"-adjacent tracks from mostly Pinoy pop artists with a little K-pop thrown into the mix for good measure.

With the same upbeat vibe, same danceability, and the same LSS potential, these songs are a reminder that when life gets rough, there is always a reason to dance as "Tala" was, and, apparently now, always will be.

Rappler.com

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PLAYLIST: A celebration of dance pop and the immortality of 'Tala' - Rappler

Super Bowl commercials: The dos and don’ts of successful ads – KTVZ

Posted on February 2, 2020 by Danzig

The Super Bowl is the advertising industrys biggest stage. Its the one day when watching the commercials is every bit as central to the experience as what happens during the actual game.

Some advertisers rise to the occasion, while others fumble.

Over the years, there have been memorable spots the kind that make it into those now-annual TV specials like Apples arresting 1984 ad, Wendys oft-quoted Wheres the beef? commercial, Budweisers Clydesdales campaign, and Volkswagens kid in the Darth Vader costume.

On the flip side, being center stage has its downside like Nationwides misguided 2015 ad that turned out to be narrated by a dead child, or the Ram Trucks spot that used a Martin Luther King Jr. sermon as a voiceover in a way that was instantly labeled crass.

Because of the variety of sponsors and approaches, theres no one way to make a Super Bowl ad worthy of the platform, and not all the spots are intended for every consumer. While most blue-chip advertisers shun controversy, smaller ones sometimes lean into it see GoDaddy for one example as a means of getter a bigger bang for their marketing bucks.

Marketing experts and academics have been clogging journalists inboxes for weeks, offering their perspectives on what makes Super Bowl ads pop. To add one more voice to that chorus, consider this a rough list of the dos and mostly donts to avoid missteps, and perhaps even earn a place in memorable commercial immortality.

This might sound obvious, but its too often forgotten by advertisers (and commercial directors) blessed with unfettered budgets. They get so enamored with beautiful shots and creating an image that they forget to tell consumers why they might want or need the product. Keanu Reeves, for example, starred in a spot for Squarespace that was kind of neat, without explaining to anybody what exactly Squarespace does.

Its fun to see familiar faces pop up during the game, but it helps enormously if theyre not a non-sequitur. Ideally the celeb (or one of their projects) can be logically connected to the product or the theme of the ad. Otherwise, it just looks like the advertiser simply enlisted the first person to say Yes to a big pile of cash. Just looking at this years lineup, Sam Elliott is a perfect fit for a western-themed Doritos spot. Wesley Snipes for Planters? Not so much.

Super Bowl ads are known for two things: How much it costs to buy them a 30-second spot goes for as much as $5.6 million this year, according to Variety and the fact that they will reach the years biggest TV audience. So producing a spot that just feels like any old commercial fails to maximize that showcase. T-mobile, for example, ran a series of spots last year offering free giveaways, which didnt rise to the occasion creatively.

With only 30 or even 60 seconds to get the message across, commercials have to do a lot of business in a short amount of time. So tethering the spot to something else in pop culture (see Bud Lights Game of Thrones-themed ad last year) or the world at large is especially useful in creating an ad that will linger beyond the games final whistle.

Ad agencies can easily outsmart themselves with their desire to create something thats going to garner attention. Being overly coy or obscure might play well in a Madison Avenue conference room, but its not necessarily the way to make people remember your commercial. Think the GM commercial where an assembly-line robot contemplates suicide, which many saw as more depressing than amusing.

Patriotism and emotion work well in this setting an approach that Budweiser in particular has mastered but theres also a danger of putting people off by overreaching, or worse, depressing them.

The aforementioned Martin Luther King Jr. Ram ad is a good example. Issues and causes can bring resonance to Super Bowl commercials, but theres a fine line between touching an emotional nerve and coming across as exploitative, since its generally understood that the point of the flowery words and images are, ultimately, in the service of making the audience feel good about the sponsor and its product.

One neednt be a prude to note that reaching 100 million viewers carries with it certain responsibilities, starting with the fact that there are going to be a lot of people seeing your ad who might not under normal circumstances.

Big sight gags are fine, but if theres the slightest doubt that something pushes too far in an effort to get noticed, err on the side of caution. Its highly subjective, obviously, but Budweisers spot featuring a flatulent horse comes to mind.

And some products, frankly, just dont work in this venue, as Jublia discovered in 2015, when it served viewers an ad for a toenail-fungus treatment along with their chips and salsa.

Super Bowl LIV kicks off Feb. 2 at 6:30 p.m. ET on Fox.

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Super Bowl commercials: The dos and don'ts of successful ads - KTVZ

Its Barry vs. Bloodwork in a battle of the mind in the latest Flash – SYFY WIRE

Posted on November 27, 2019 by Danzig

We learn the fallout of Dibnys clash with Bloodwork from last week, which leads us to a full on battle royale for the soul of Barry Allen himself this week and the winner might surprise you.

Spoilers ahead for The Last Temptation of Barry Allen, Part 1, the latest episode of The CWs Flash, which aired Tuesday, November 26, 2019.

Bloodwork has made for a breath of fresh air as far as big bads are concerned, so its only fitting the big clash with Ramsey makes for a very different type of battle as the first half of the season looks to wrap up in time for Crisis on Infinite Earth in a couple of weeks (the second half of The Flashs season will be a different, self-contained story, similar to the mini-arcs utilized on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. the past few years). Turns out Ramsey infected Ralph (though Ralph did land an epic punch between manholes on him), and as Barry saves Ralph with a blood transfusion, a tiny bit of that infection spreads to him.

So yes now Barry Allen is infected with Bloodworks seemingly unstoppable black goo.

This leads Barry to collapse (a few times) with a fever as his speed healing and the Speed Force try to fight off this sentient infection that is literally Ramsey himself kicking around in the memories and pain of Barrys mind. It manifests in some fascinating ways and asks some interesting questions along the way. Ramsey walks Barry through a graveyard of all the people hes lost along the way (shoutout to the dearly departed Eddie Thawne may he RIP), gives him a peek at his future daughter as a baby, and gives him a glimpse at a possible future where he can literally revive the dead with the power of Ramseys black goo. Its certainly tempting.

The counterpoint to Ramseys temptation is represented by the Speed Force itself, once again taking on the face of Barrys late mother. She encourages Barry to try and fight Ramseys influence, but with Barry staring down the barrel of a gun (in The Flashs current timeline, the Crisis is a mere two days away) he sees Ramseys offer of immortality through the power of his corrupting concoction as a possible lifeline. When the Speed Force itself confirms that, yes, Barry could survive the Crisis if he joins with Ramsey, he finally breaks. Though its made clear he would lose his soul to save his body, we cut away with Barrys body literally split in two between the competing forces and ideologies.

The he wakes up, having seemingly battled away Ramseys infection. But it takes Iris just a moment to realize thats not Barry he gave in to Ramseys offer, and now The Flash himself is a lightning-quick agent of Bloodwork.

Much of the season has found Barry diving into his work and trying to prepare Star City, and the team, for a world without him. Its only now we really see Barry finally grapple with his own fear and mortality and when a questionable means of escape drops in his lap, he caves to those fears and takes it. Weve seen Barry make a lot of mistakes over the years (ahem, Flashpoint), but its rare hes made a turn like this. Of course, hes never faced something so uncertain and gigantic as Crisis, either.

As for the rest of the team, much of the focus is on Iris and her crack journalism squad at The Citizen. They spend much of the episode looking into a case, though its mostly a means for iris to distract herself from actually having the write that Flash Vanishes in Crisis article that has been looming over the series since its launch. At Allegras urging, she finally does settle in to write the infamous cover story which turns into a touching obituary of sorts for what the Flash has meant to Central City all these years.

As for Dibny, he looks to be on the road to recovery but hes being shipped off to an Argus safe house to finish mending up. But, pics from Crisis show him back in action for the big crossover, so hell be back soon enough.

Timeline check-in. Yes, once again, Crisis is only two days away in The Flashs current timeline. So, once the Bloodwork story (likely) comes to an end, its straight into Crisis.

Nashs dig for the Monitors hideout also continues this week, and it seems hes found the door, which features a few mysterious symbols.

Next week: It feels like a season finale, as Bloodwork makes his move for Central City and spreads his infection all over the place. Will Flash return to the side of good? I mean, yeah. Probably. But it sure looks like fun.

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Its Barry vs. Bloodwork in a battle of the mind in the latest Flash - SYFY WIRE

Christ or Crake? Mortality is the Fear of Death Brad Jersak | Brad Jersak – Patheos

Posted on November 27, 2019 by Danzig

In Oryx and Crake,the first novel of Margaret Atwoods dystopic Maddaddam trilogy, a character nicknamed Crake argues that mortality is not merely death, but also the anxiety-inducing and violence-producing foreknowledge and fear of death.Crakes solution to mortality is profoundly catastrophic, but his diagnosis is in some ways, spot on.

Two great thinkers whove shed important light on the phenomenon of death-anxiety are Ernest Becker, in his 1973 work, The Denial of Death,and more recently, Richard Beck inThe Slavery of Death.Both writers think about the ways we live in denial of death and how this creates deep-seated neurotic anxiety when we refuse to face the vulnerability and fragility of the human condition, it inevitably spills over into violence.

Another epic saga, the drama of redemption rolled out in our Scriptures, faces death head-on by addressing how it came to be (Genesis 3), how it will come to end (1 Corinthians 15) and how the solution finds its axis in Jesus Christ. Unlike Crake, who resolved to create a new species who are ignorant of death, Christ enters death to break its back and strip it of its power and grant us immortality.

But what is the power of death? This is where Atwoods insight (misapplied by Crake) is so helpful. She inspires me to see how the gospel can conquer death by death and make us immortal even though we will still pass through its gates. The power of death is not merely the reality that my bodily destiny will include an earthly departure involving the miracle of decomposition. Thats not our biggest problem, especially in light of our forthcoming resurrection established in Christ. The real issue is how we anticipate all that.

If we foresee my death as a fearful descent into non-being, then we are enslaved to mortalityi.e. to our death-anxiety, to the neurotic ways of death-denial, and to the fatal fruit of sin it produces.

But if we come to see and believe in the reality of Christs victory over death, the revelation of his resurrection sets us free from the power of deathnow, in this life. So says the author of Hebrews:

Now since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity, so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death(Hebrews 2:14-1.5).

In other words, while we will pass from literal mortality to immortality when we hear his voice saying, Rise!, it is also true that we already passed from death to life when we were first raised to life by grace through faith in Christ. Thats why we can take Jesus seriously when he said,

Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man (John 5:24-27).

Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death (John 8:51).

And even at the tomb of Lazarus, four days into death (John 11:25027):

Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?

Yes, Lord, she replied, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.

Was Jesus Christ mistaken? Was he just performing word-tricks or playing mind-games? Not at all. Its not just that he could raise Lazarus from the dead or would rise from the dead himself. Its even more than your some-day resurrection on the far side. Somehow, the power of death (mortality as foreseeing and fearing death) has already been dismantled and we enjoy the inheritance of immortality here and now.

In the 4th century, Athanasius key proof for the resurrection of Christ was notsome lawyerly proof of the empty tomb or a refutation of the Roman conspiracy theories. His proof that Christ was and is alive is that he had conquered the power of death (mortality) in his people. Their grace and peace in the face of martyrdomtheir fearlessness of what lay aheadwas proof of their Saviors immortality and their own immortality as an accomplished truth.

Modern Christianity has somehow lost sight of this on a grand scale. I wonder at our fear of death and the lengths we go to deny and divert it. Is it our white-knuckled attachment to the only life we actually believe in? When it matters most, do we revert to the de facto atheism of death-anxiety? How might Christ set us free again?

The worlds solutions, it seems to me, are little more than hubris, bravado and dehumanization than authentic assurance. And then theres the great and growing rush toward transhumanism, defined this way:

Transhumanism is a class of philosophies of life that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology, guided by life-promoting principles and values. Max More (1990)

Without ethical parameters, our faith in science to overcome the power of death transforms Atwoods fiction into prophecy a dystopic vision indeed. That tale cant end well.

I have only had a few sobering brushes with death, but have not to this point, been diagnosed with anything terminal other than death. For now, death is only in my face indirectly through several close loved ones who are, at this moment, counting their months or weeks until departure. Will I face my own terminustransition as graciously as they are? Or am I still in the death-denial of mortality? I dont know. Butas I see it, the problem of mortality and the power of death will down to just two options. Whats it going to be?

Christ or Crake?

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Christ or Crake? Mortality is the Fear of Death Brad Jersak | Brad Jersak - Patheos

Lost Odyssey Is A Moving Story About Immortality, Memories, And Loss – Kotaku

Posted on January 4, 2020 by Danzig

Theres a game I keep coming back to every few years. Its Lost Odyssey for the Xbox 360. Developed by Hironobu Sakaguchis Mistwalker Studios, its basically Final Fantasy mixed with the old show about immortals, Highlander.

The first two times I played it, I got to the White Boa, then stopped. Life just got in the way and while I really enjoyed it, I moved onto something else. The third time I came back to it, I promised myself Id actually finish the game. Im glad I did, as Im having a blast.

Final Fantasy has changed a lot in its last three main series single-player outings. FFXII, XIII, and XV have incorporated simulation and action RPG elements to the point where they feel like very different games. So I was pleasantly surprised when I loaded up Lost Odyssey and it felt like Id warped back to the PS1 era of Final Fantasy games. That meant turn-based combat, intricate stories that focus on character interactions, and gorgeous worlds that are fun to explore. Even the menus reminded me of the PS1 JRPGs.

Lost Odyssey is about the immortal, Kaim, whos lost his memory. He doesnt seem interested in retrieving it as we learn how his past is bound up in tragedy. We first come across him in the midst of a battle between the nations of the Uhra and the Khent. As the conflict intensifies, a meteor that would have made Sephiroth proud wipes out both forces. Kaim is one of the few survivors thanks to his immortality. He walks through the decimated ruins of the battlefield, embers, ash, and smoke everywhere. The sense of futility and desperation weighs down on him. Hes not a hero running to the rescue. His actions on behalf of the Uhra were pointless. Despite his strength, he cant actually help anyone. Its as bleak an introduction to a game as Ive seen.

He eventually bumps into another immortal, Seth. She, too, has lost her memories. Im not immortal, but its hard for me to remember most things from 10-20 years ago. I cant imagine what shape my memory would be in with a thousand years of history weighing down on me. For Kaim, memories start seeping back through his dreams. I love how theyre triggered by random events. At one point, he meets a kid who exuberantly declares he wants to be a mercenary when he grows up. This evokes Kaims past memory of a time he was in war with a young mercenary who talked big, but eventually was so overcome by fear, he fled the battle scene. Theres a wistful pain to these memories, as time has dulled the wounds and experience has given Kaim a broader perspective on human nature.

Many of these memories come in the form of textual short stories. Honestly, I feel conflicted about these. On one hand, theyre beautifully written and are poignant short stories. But they also break the immersion in the game and feel like a jarring diversion. I wish somehow these sequences could have better blended into the game, maybe with a stronger visual element that would have helped make them more cohesive.

The interactions between the characters of Lost Odyssey are a lot of fun. Im probably going to sound like a broken record, but I had flashbacks to the dialogue in games like FFIX and even Chrono Trigger. The party members argue, banter, get on each others nerves, but somehow find a way to come together to fight a greater evil. The magician, Jansen, acts as comedic relief for the party. When he initially joined, I couldnt decide whether he was annoying or amusing. After spending some time with him, he became one of the most interesting characters in the game and always has a perfectly timed quip to shake things up.

Kaim is reserved and brooding, but hes also surprisingly vulnerable. When the party gets locked up in a prison, Kaim actually confesses hes scarednot by his imprisonment, but by his own dreams and what they portend. As an immortal, he basically doesnt give two cents what anyone thinks about him.

Seths memories as a pirate slowly creep back to her, all while shes trying to understand the political machinations going on around her. She balances Jansens ridiculous whining, but also tries to bring more cheer for Kaim as they try to figure out the mysteries behind the giant magical Staff protruding high up into the sky.

The world of Lost Odyssey is spectacular, combining fixed cameras and full 3D environments. The kingdom of Numara looks stunning with its seaside locale and sprawling architecture. I could see how their isolationist philosophy and long peace had inspired its people to focus on their culture. People debate art in the Artists Salon, a Philosophers Chamber welcomes the brightest minds of the kingdom, and theres even special types of custom-made equipment in a boutique. When we learn their General Kakanas wants to shift priorities and take on a more belligerent position, I was as angry and upset as their queen. Paradise was being threatened.

Its also really nice to enter a new town and hear people say weirdly quizzical things while they go about their business. A lot of RPGs these days do have towns bustling with people, but they dont interact with you unless theyre giving you a sidequest or selling you something. The cities of Lost Odyssey felt a lot more alive in that sense.

The battle system is turn-based, which may feel archaic to some. I didnt mind it at all, and the addition of an Aim Ring System, similar to the Shadow Hearts series, adds a timing element to it that makes the attacks feel like a rush. Party arrangement is important as the front line forms a wall that protects the rear forces, usually composed of magicians who are physically weaker. The battles themselves are tough and there were a few times I actually lost because I didnt plan carefully enough. Theres a story-based encounter against Numarian cavalry in the Ghost Town that I struggled with the first two times I faced them. After getting my butt handed to me, I re-strategized, starting the battle off with some shield spells to make my immortals stronger against the cavalrys charge, then using flare bombs to dispose of the soldiers. I also changed up the rings Id assembled to give a slight boost to my offensive skills and that made the difference.

Ive long harped about RPGs that offer you a huge cast of playable characters, but only allow you to take three of them into battle. Lost Odyssey allows a party of up to five, which feels like the perfect balance. Thank you, Mistwalker.

Towards the end of the first disc, Kaim meets up with two kids, Cooke and Mack, who are defending a flower garden. Something about them seems familiar to Kaim and the party goes home with the children after they invite them to stay over. When Kaim sees their mother, Lirum, memories flood back into him. He realizes she is actually his daughter and these two siblings are his grandkids. Lirum is on her deathbed, but she is so happy to see her father one last time. Relieved that Kaim can take care of her children, she passes on.

The funeral procession that follows is somber, but also incredibly moving. Lirums body is resting on a boat that is tied to the shore by multiple ropes. Friends of the family hold unlit torches and speak with Cooke and Mack, telling them how important Lirum was to their lives. The children in turn light the torches, which the respective people then use to burn one of the ropes holding Lirums boat. Once they finish, Cooke and Mack burn the final two ropes, causing her vessel to float away.

Kaim, whod mostly been reserved until that point in the game, opens up to his grandchildren, doing his best to comfort them. Even Jansen is surprised at how different Kaim is around them. The little details here make the difference. When you check the shelves, you can get a medical prognosis about Lirums deteriorating condition. Rather than buy flowers or torches, you have to gather them from the ghost town, and its a slow, almost laborious process. To further illustrate how impoverished they were, when you check Lirums bedroom cabinet, you find only one gold piece in contrast to most other homes where you find a lot more.

I got choked up thinking about how heartbreaking it must have been for Kaim to see his child this way.

Im totally hooked on Lost Odyssey. Ive wondered why I never finished it the first two times through. Fortunately, similar to the immortals, I forget the story every time I come back. Im hoping the third time is the charm and I can finally make my way through and uncover more answers to the questions I have, like why is the villain, Gongora, plotting to re-establish the monarchy? How is he involved with the amnesia of the immortals? Where did all the monsters infecting the Grand Staff come from? And who threw that big-ass meteor down on me at the beginning of the game?

One of the bigger questions I have is about JRPGs themselves: do I prefer JRPGs in the older traditional style Id grown up with?

My honest opinion is that I hope theres room for games like Lost Odyssey as much as FFXV. Persona V and Dragon Quest XI are turn-based, but had enough evolution in their systems where the battles never felt tedious. They both also told really great stories and had memorable characters that made them some of the best games of the generation. I really did enjoy the combat of FFXV and found there were even things I liked about the paradigm shifts of FFXIII. But Lost Odyssey hits a sweet spot for me and I like the old school mechanics. I still have a ways to go before I finish Lost Odyssey, but it feels like Im spending time with a friend I havent seen in ages again. I might not have a thousand years, but Im in no rush to speed through.

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Lost Odyssey Is A Moving Story About Immortality, Memories, And Loss - Kotaku

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