The Gaming Outpost

To save you to trouble of hitting a dictionary web site, I’ll explain that a nonce is a nonsense word invented to serve a momentary literary purpose.  Famous ones include the runcible spoon of Edward Lear’s The Owl and the Pussycat (which someone has since invented), the telephant from Ogden Nash’ The Elephant and the Telephone, and of course nearly the entire vocabulary of Lewis Carroll’s Jabberocky, and of particular interest to me at the moment, mimzy.  It becomes the focal point of today’s Examiner temporal anomalies article, The Last Mimzy part 6:  what’s in a name?.

The problem arises because Lewis Carroll appears to invent the word mimzy as an adjective in that poem, and gives its derivation through the mouth of one of his characters, but the movie strongly suggests that he got the word from Alice, in the name of her mysterious bunny.  If he invented the word, then it makes sense that his meaning for it is correct and it was used in the future because of that meaning which has no obvious connection to the toy rabbit or the time travel experiments.  If, though, he got the word from the future and gave it meaning, he will have impacted the origin and meaning of the word such that it might not be used for that experiment.

The article attempts to present and resolve this problem.

In other news there doesn’t seem to be any other news worth mentioning; or else my late night last night has left me a bit to fuzzy to remember it.  There’s much to do, though, so let me get to the doing thereof.

It’s been a long and tiring day, to the point that I nearly forgot to tell you that I added another temporal anomalies article at The Examiner.  This one, The Last Mimzy part 5:  the Alice Mimzy, considers the impact of the idea that Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories were inspired by a toy rabbit from the future.  There’s a second part of that to come on Thursday, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I picked up another Twitter follower over the weekend, and have no idea who she is, although I suspect she’s just trying to collect links back to her own site and might be deep-sixed for Spam eventually.

I’m not really focused here, but hopefully I’ll get past that.

–M. J. Young

Today’s Examiner temporal anomalies article might sound like something medieval, as the title The Last Mimzy part 3:  the order of Mimzys might be taken to suggest some sort of knightly honors.  It’s much more mundane than that, simply considering in what sense the last Mimzy is “last”.  In a time travel movie, that’s not a stupid question.

Meanwhile, I have begun the analysis of The Lake House.  Put it down as ridiculous, that half an hour after I started this analysis effort, my lost copy of The Time Traveler’s Wife resurfaced; but there are a lot of complications in the impossible fantasy I’m examining, so it should make for an interesting series.

I feel obliged, based in large part on II Corinthians 1:11, to thank those who prayed for our Collision concert Friday night.  Our performance went quite well, thank you; we received several compliments on it.  The other acts included a few rather impressive ones, and the headliners Tal & Acacia surprised me pleasantly, combining a folk-jazz flavor in Simon & Garfunkel stylings with a sister act that was at times quite reminiscent of The Smothers Brothers as they talked over each other and spoke the same words at the same time.  I recommend hearing them if you get the chance.  On our part, we were struck by the vocal abilities of a female soloist whom we have approached about replacing our lost lead vocal/rhythm guitar, and hope to meet sometime this week to talk further.  Something may come of it, which might mean I have to focus a lot more effort into getting our equipment up and running and our bass guitarist trained.

I’m not sure what plans others have for me today, but I’m making headway on everything, so it seems to be a good day.

–M. J. Young

I have several times mentioned that tonight Collision will be playing at Lift-FM’s Feed a Friend Free Concert, opening for Tal & Acacia.  We are one of the “exciting up & coming area bands” mentioned in the promotional material.

I doubt many blog readers here are near enough Seaville (New Jersey) to attend, and we expect to do a mere two songs so if you’re more than an hour away (we’re an hour away ourselves, and down here in the sticks that’s not really a long trip) it’s probably not worth it to come just for us.  I’ve not heard the headliners, but I know Joe Burke has a good ear for what’s good in Christian music, so I expect they’re worth hearing.  In any case, the invitation is extended.

I am also asking believers to remember us in prayer for this.  It is the sort of opportunity that has the potential to create opportunities; a large audience will hear us and at least some will remember and want to hear more–that, at least, is the hope and expectation, as it has happened before in similar circumstances.  There are no guarantees, however.  Two songs is not a big concert, and one mistake can ruin half of them.

So thanks for your support and encouragement, and particularly for your prayers in the current circumstance.

–M. J. Young