Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Weekly Wikipedia Find: The Diogenes Club

I have been to many a gentleman's club. I have never been a member of a gentleman's club. I knew not such a thing was possible. But it has been brought to my attention that there may in fact be multiple definitions for a gentleman's club. One has strippers, one has comfy chairs and cigars. I'm not sure the former allows members. One such of the latter, albeit a fictitious one, is The Diogenes Club. It is a place where a gentleman can go to relax, and read without distraction, and possibly a front for the British Secret Service because of an association with the co-founder, Sherlock Holmes' brother. Ostensibly, it is named for the Greek philosopher, but only ostensibly for it bears no obvious reverence for the Diogenes' known cynicism.

Wikipedia by Week
Week Twenty-Eight: E pur si muove!
Week Twenty-Seven: Unico
Week Twenty-Six: Panopticon
Week Twenty-Five: Legendary
Week Twenty-Four: Ostern
Week Twenty-Three: Kilroy was here
Week Twenty-Two: Jack Parsons
Week Twenty-One: The Wold Newton Universe
Week Twenty: Anonymous
Week Nineteen: Monty Hall problem
Week Eighteen: Brown Booby
Week Seventeen: Dieter Dengler
Week Sixteen: New Jerusalem
Week Fifteen: Technological Singularity
Week Fourteen: Numbers Station
Week Thirteen: Culper Ring
Week Twelve: Mary Sue
Week Eleven: Byford dolphin diving bell accident
Week Ten: Deep-sea gigantism
Week Nine: Bloop
Week Eight: Rat king
Week Seven: Gustave Doré
Week Six: Tomorrow
Week Five: Borscht Belt
Week Four: Swampman
Week Three: Chinese room
Week Two: Ambrose Burnside
Week One:
Lolita fashion

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Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Weekly Wikipedia Find: The Wold Newton Universe

It must be literature week here at The Genius Defines. Just kill me now, eh? Am I right, guys? Am I right or am I right?

The Wold Newton Universe takes noted science fiction author Philip José Farmer's notion that famous literary characters were all members of the same bloodline (the Wold Newton Family) and runs with it. This bloodline includes Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Doc Savage, Solomon Kane, The Time Traveller, Allan Quatermain, Fu Manchu, Philip Marlowe, James Bond, etc. (OMG tag heaven!!1!). Of course, this is no ordinary bloodline to include all these exceptional individuals. Rather, it has been effected by the meteorite that struck the village of Wold Newton in 1795. That's the real-life meteorite which struck the real-life village of Wold Newton in the real-life 1795. The town's descendants then are gifted with extra endowed with intelligence and strength becoming of their fictional statures. Also, a community does not make a bloodline.

Onto the actual expansion of this idea is the sense that these now connected characters can infinitely extracted upon and within each other, looping and looping, so that 90% of all fiction (EVAR!) takes place in Farmer's mind as he shakes a snow globe. It's intertextuality, people; when will you learn (I might remind you that Spock is a descendant of Sherlock Holmes).

Wikipedia by Week
Week Twenty: Anonymous
Week Nineteen: Monty Hall problem
Week Eighteen: Brown Booby
Week Seventeen: Dieter Dengler
Week Sixteen: New Jerusalem
Week Fifteen: Technological Singularity
Week Fourteen: Numbers Station
Week Thirteen: Culper Ring
Week Twelve: Mary Sue
Week Eleven: Byford dolphin diving bell accident
Week Ten: Deep-sea gigantism
Week Nine: Bloop
Week Eight: Rat king
Week Seven: Gustave Doré
Week Six: Tomorrow
Week Five: Borscht Belt
Week Four: Swampman
Week Three: Chinese room
Week Two: Ambrose Burnside
Week One:
Lolita fashion

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