The Codex Alera Epic Fantasy series book notes

I just finished reading the 6 books of the Codex Alera fantasy fiction series by Jim Butcher, the last three were a bit of a blur as I read them back to back, I wrote brief notes about them on Goodreads, and here I thought I'd write an overall review of the series, avoiding spoilers.

First I'm biased, I read and love all 17 novels in The Dresden Files series by the same author. And I suppose I'm biased as a regular reader of fantasy and science-fiction in general.

Jim Butcher described the idea at the origin of the Codex Alera as the Roman Empire with Pokemon mashed up as two concepts. The first as a bit of a different vibe from the more frequent medieval setting, here is a more antique Roman style setting. The second because the people in this vast empire have abilities to adopt and control elemental style creatures and powers that go along with them. In case it concerns you (it did for me when I first heard that ideas), the Pokemon idea is not carried out much further. Catching them all is not particularly at the heard of the plot, and they're called furies, hence the book titles.

It starts out as all traditional epic fantasy series: with a nobody boy hitting puberty somewhere lost in the middle of nowhere countryside, and of course with enough winks to the knowledgeable fantasy reader that one realises the protagonist is likely hidden royalty or some such.

There are enough nods to other fantasy works to what you're dealing with and having it set in some genre tropes and traditions, enough new elements of setting to make it interesting, and enough small and larger twists to raise eyebrows in usually good surprises. 

An obvious one from the start is that in a world where everyone has some kind of special magical powers with elements like water or fire, the young hero doesn't and has to rely on wits alone to get himself out of trouble.

The big bad guys seem coming straight out of science-fiction tropes rather than fantasy ones, which is pretty cool. Think of the Zerg in StarCraft or the Arachnid bugs in the Starship Troopers movie, if ever those ring bells. 

Where I feel Jim Butcher particularly shines, to some extent as in The Dresden Files, is the wild action-packed scenes and outrageous scale of events.

He's also funny, and I highlighted a number of turns of phrases I've enjoyed throughout the series.

Even in the first book there are excellent page-turning unexpected turns of events and crazy-paced action. Fun characters, enough hints of secrets, backstory elements and foreshadowing to want to read the rest of the series.

I also enjoyed that the first book, and I'd say up to the third, have satisfying arcs, beginnings, middles, and ends, setups for the sequels without too much of cliffhangers.

I left a pause and read another book or two between those, compared to the fourth book. I happened to be on holidays so that may have played into it, but it felt like events massively accelerate from the fourth book onwards, and I read the rest of the series back to back. So it's a bit of a blur.

In Goodreads, I only wrote short comments, my overall impression in a few words for each book in the series goes this way:

1. Furies of Calderon: Setup and big events on a local scale
2. Academ's Fury: Character growth and development.
3. Cursor's Fury: Problems and successes against massive odds. Probably my favourite book in the series.
4. Captain's Fury: Events accelerate.
5. Princeps' Fury: The scale, scope and stakes of events dramatically expands.
6. First Lord's Fury: A breathtaking race to the end line and resolution.

Suffice to say I recommend them, and also a good choice even if you're not in love with fantasy style novels, there's enough action and fun page turning for most if not all readers I think.

Tinkering to best understand tech, then perhaps criticize it

The Paris chapter of Creative Mornings had been dormant since the pandemic (as far as I know), so I was happily surprised when I found out it was recently taken over by a new group of people, I'm joining in to support them.

CreativeMornings exceptionally took place in the evening yesterday, the speaker was Benjamin Gaulon, an artist, researcher, and I'd say tinkerer extraordinaire.

I raised my hand to look for sponsors for event series (j'écrirais sans doute un post en français à ce propos bientôt, mais n'hésitez pas si jamais vous voulez discuter de devenir sponsor pour Creative Mornings Paris).

I'm sure strategists and other Venn diagram geeks will appreciate Ben's "unifying theory" diagram that came towards the end of his talk, as he pondered the relationships between his art projects and teaching workshops.\

Ben began by telling us he grew up in a small village in France that happened to be right next to a open air dump, and that was his favorite place to play and explore, digging up treasure out of the dirt.

A description copied from his website, Recyclism: "His research focuses on the limits and failures of information and communication technologies; planned obsolescence, consumerism and disposable society; ownership and privacy; through the exploration of détournement, hacking and recycling."

Recyclism

My main takeaway from his talk is that to criticize, you best first understand, and that happens as much through tinkering as it does through theorizing (or perhaps more).

Ben pulls all sorts things apart from other people's electronic waste and teaches students how to work with, hack, experiment, as well as critically think about electronics, digital devices, our use of them, and a lot more.

He started NØ and the NØ School in Nevers (Burgundy), a collective and summer school to understand and critically discuss electronics and communication technologies.

NØ Collective

NØ School Nevers

I enjoyed hearing about all the projects I worked on, from The Internet of Dead Things to Tech Mining and Retail Poisoning, his websites are definitely worth checking out.

Because I remember playing with them as a kid, special mention to his rehabilitating a collection of Minitels to set them up as a simili Apple/Minitels store for people to experiment with.  

In case you don't know, the Minitel was the French government's first digital communication network, and there were terminal screens in many homes, with proto websites people could visit, and use to find information, chat with other people by text, play games, etc.

The next Creative Mornings Paris talk is on Friday 19th July, and the monthly theme is 'trust' - sign up here.

Thanks to Frédéric Bussière, Catherine Erneux, and the others for putting this up!

Perceiving different shades and textures of colours

 

"Ancient cultures have more developed and nuanced sensitivities to colour than contemporary societies. In all areas, there is not just one colour black, but several."

That's roughly translated from French in this book I'm reading from historian Michel Pastoureau, Noir - histoire d'une couleur (Black: history of a colour, there is an official English translation).

This is his second book in a series about the history of colours, focused mostly on European history and culture (the author's speciality and field of scholarly research).

It's a fascinating read, first in the introduction to appreciate that the meaning we tend to associate with different colours nowadays is cultural, and different from what it had been in the past. 

Until recently, and for a long while, black and white were not considered to be colours. In antiquity and the middle ages, they were though.

I'm paraphrasing a few bits I thought worth sharing here, namely that there used to be several words associated with the colours black and white. 

Colour was also a matter of expressing light (bright/dark, matte/glossy), matter, texture, surface (smooth/rough), and saturation. In Latin was done with different words, prefixes, and suffixes.

Black is about fighting off darkness and a quest for light.

In Latin, as well as ancient German and English, there were two distinct sets of words for the colours black, one for matte black and another for bright or glossy black.

Some ancient cultures even set more emphasis on other areas of perception than chromatic tone, so brightness, density, or texture was more important than tone. 

I find it difficult to wrap my head around, but apparently because of this, in ancient Greek and Latin for example, there is a word that designates and means both blue, and black ('kuanos in Greek, 'caeruleus' in Latin). 

No wonder some ancient texts are tough to translate, and placing these words and meaning back in their cultural context is extremely challenging.

It's mind-boggling to consider that if I had someone from ancient Greece or Rome looking at the editor with a black screen background I'm typing on now, would have multiple words to choose from to name and describe this colour, when I just have one in mind.

Next time you look at a brand logo, a sign, or an ad, keep in mind that whatever interpretation you have of the colours involved, not only did past cultures have different ones, they also had more words to express what they saw.

Pretty wild.

Black: The History of a Colour, by Michel Pastoureau 

Debt: The First 5,000 Years, by David Graeber [book review]

I don’t rave about non-fiction books as ‘absolutely riveting’ to my friends and family all that often, though I’ll admit it’s kind of more likely if it was written by David Graeber. I highlighted whole passages, enough to question the point of a highlight altogether, and added a bunch of other referenced books to my reading list. In fact, Goodreads tells me I highlighted 272 passages of a 534 page-long book, about one every other page. Clearly I loved it.

“Surely one has to pay one’s debts.”

David Graeber begins the book by with a conversation he had with someone, who apparently said those words in such a way that he started questioning them. This led him to taking a wide view: 5,000 years of history around the world, about debt as a moral and economic notion; the origins of markets and money (and that coins have little to do with barter, which is fascinating in and of itself).

The history is “a way to ask fundamental questions about what human beings and human society are or could be like—what we actually do owe each other, what it even means to ask that question.”

“the central question of this book [is]: What, precisely, does it mean to say that our sense of morality and justice is reduced to the language of a business deal? What does it mean when we reduce moral obligations to debts?”

Financial issues and debt were a thing in my family for a whole period of time growing up. I’m not going into much detail, but I experienced bailiffs and debt recovery agents knocking at the door, furniture being removed, and being evicted from home, among other things. It’s not fun. I used to just blame my parents, but going back 5,000 years and considering debt from different angles and cultures has been eye-opening, both soothing and shaking.

If you’ve experienced debt (I’m pretty sure we all have) and enjoy considering big questions, there’s a fair chance you’ll enjoy it. Plus it’s masterfully written: legible, blending engaging stories with a large amount of bibliographical references, and big questions, as already mentioned. I strongly recommend it. I’m looking forward to reading his posthumous ‘Dawn of Everything’ written with David Wengrow soon.

A year of magic and insights at Disneyland Paris

 

I've been rekindling with an interest in theme parks and roller coasters in the past year, which started as I went to Disneyland Paris and then upgraded to an Infinity Annual Pass.

The whole thing began with an ad. The signs I spotted as I was leaving the park exhausted at nearly midnight with my sister-in-law, niece and nephew said something like: "remember you can deduce the cost of your day ticket towards the purchase of an annual pass!"

I'll happily share more details of that story over coffee for those interested, including the rabbit hole of a purchase funnel I went on, but suffice to say I was back there the following week with my other nieces and a friend I roped in for the occasion (thank you James!).

I managed to go 14 times in total. I took all my nieces, nephew, and godson on separate occasions. I attended the special Halloween Party night with my girlfriend and nieces (we dressed up as minions).

I also wandered there by myself. I used the park as an occasional office to work from. I wrote the initial notes for this post last week, sitting outdoors at Colonel Hathi's Pizza Outpost, looking out on Adventureland's greenery.

Visiting with others, we tended to focus on going on as many rides as possible, eating home made sandwiches in the queues, and small occasional stops for snacks or another meal, to briefly check out a parade, or some character.

Wandering by myself I spent time contemplating the design, organisation, huge range of merchandising in shops, food on offer, and shows.

My pass expired last week so I've been reflecting on the whole experience.

A massive attraction

As much as I sometimes like to think I'm different, I get pulled in the same as everyone.

Paris is the most visited city in the world, and Disneyland Paris is the most visited tourist attraction in Europe, and in France. The Louvre is the second most visited spot after Sleeping Beauty's Castle: 7.8 vs. 9.9 Million visitors in 2022.

I don't know what their maximum capacity is these days, but on average that represents 27,205 visitors a day, welcomed and looked after by approximately 16,000 cast members. That might be across both parks (Disneyland and Disney Studios), which together have about 15 million visitors per year, along with Disney Village including seven hotels, restaurants, more shops, and a direct train line from Paris.

As they celebrated their 30th anniversary, Disneyland Paris announced a record setting $2.6 billion revenue last year, and $52 million in operating profit. They also opened a brand new theme area in Disney Studios Park bringing in new people: Marvel Avengers Campus. The area includes several food options, super heroes wandering around, shows, a new Spider-man ride and the sadly missed Aerosmith Rock N'Roller Coaster rethemed as Avengers Assemble Flight Force.

To think it's just one Disneyland resort in the world, and not the biggest, my mind boggles. The operation is massive: Disney Parks global attendance in 2022 was over 115 million visitors.

Being there is awesome, and I can't help but think of the crowds there as a kind of pilgrimage. Generations rekindling with and handing over their love for these worlds and characters to new ones. Older people get to feel years melting away (as long they're not looking at crowds or price tags too closely), while the young ones get to see beloved figures "for real." Experiencing this with children, and of different age groups as I've been lucky to have done is… well, not priceless, but precious nonetheless.

The cost of enchantment

Last year's results exceeded those of 2018 or 2019, though expectedly long time closing during the pandemic seem to have had various effects, such as ticket prices increasing several times, and the end of the free timed fast lane system, replaced by a paid for one, via the dedicated app.

Just because I like stating the obvious, it's worth underlining this kind of magic is not for everyone. That was the case prior to COVID of course. For an illustration of life beyond the gates of the Magic Kingdom I highly recommend the excellent 2017 film The Florida Project.

Since I got my annual pass I discovered a Byzantine and complex booking system that made what was meant to be a pass I could use every day of the year into a scheduling headache. An influencer even organised a playful protest for annual pass holders.

More recently, DLP employees have been on strike, demanding monthly wage increases and improved working conditions, some employees saying they can no longer make ends meet. While I'm at it and in the midst of the writers and actors strike in Hollywood, Disney announced a new task force to study AI (and cut costs most sources say).

An average DLP undated day ticket price starts at approximately $124.96. If you plan ahead with dated tickets it can be less. It's still at least twice the cost of other nearby theme parks, many of whom have been investing in amazing new rides over the years (Parc Astérix' new area and coaster Toutatis is phenomenal, for example).

They recently changed the annual pass system and increased the prices about 30% while removing a number of benefits. I have a few more weeks to ponder but I'm pretty sure I've had enough for now. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I'm unlikely to renew (and so many other theme parks to go explore).

Still, as cynical as I might be tempted to be, it is fascinating place to check out up close for a brand strategist. People will save up and spend over and above to be part of the Disney brand experience and share it with their friends and loved ones. Little (or none) of it is rational. The meltdowns I've seen both adults and children have in the park are totally emotional.

By the way among all the merchandising, I've seen many groups and families wear their own printed "2023 Disneyland Paris family name vacation" t-shirts - so many I'm surprised Disney doesn't offer this online as a matter of fact when you book your tickets ahead of time.

Same thoughts go to "Disneybounding," the practice of dressing in colour schemes and outfits reminiscent of official characters but not going against the ban on adults wearing costumes (from the Disneybound blog). Perhaps they don't want to encourage it though.

The actual magic

In case you're not familiar, the division in charge of the theme parks is called Disney Imagineering, blending engineering, design, technology, and Disney storytelling.

Looking at the design of the theme park, I'm blown away by the genius and planning behind the landscape architecture making the place feel a lot larger and wondrous than it is, the queues and ride design to get visitors in and maintaining a state of suspended disbelief.

The classic dark rides Phantom Manor and Pirates of the Caribbean are gorgeous, Big Thunder Mountain is a beautiful thrill ride for the whole family. The new Avengers Campus feels alive with its unscheduled and impromptu appearances of superheroes calling children out in the gathered informal audiences to join them.

I'm reminded of the characteristics of play I often quote from Roger Caillois' Man, Play, and Games, and how well Disneyland meets them. In particular:

• It is separate (from the routine of life), occupying its own time and space.
• It is governed by rules that suspend ordinary laws and behaviours and that must be followed by players.
• It involves make-believe that confirms for players the existence of imagined realities that may be set against 'real life'.

The magic is in suspending disbelief and letting yourself be in a state of play.

Maybe theme parks and crowds aren't your thing, maybe there's something else special, out of the ordinary, an adventure beyond the routine of life, something you could get up to with children and/or loved ones soon.

Last but not least, the actual magic is obviously down to the cast members working every day to bring Disneyland Paris to life: attendants, cleaners, servers, ride operators, actors, and many more - thank you to all the people working there day in, day out so visitors can play.

Marmite Love / Hate Discovery

 

I'm just back from visiting friends in the UK and made quite the discovery that had me go back to and reconsider Marmite and its advertising.

I thought I was clearly in the "I hate Marmite" camp, decided probably over twenty years ago. That was reinforced by years of love/hate advertising that I've always thought clever and fun.

Sure it's a divisive product, but this past weekend as my friends were telling me how they love marmite, had lovely sourdough bread, I thought well I actually haven't tasted Marmite in a very long time. Turns out I thought "hey this isn't actually bad", let me have some more, and I had more the following day too. Same for my girlfriend, she thought she was firmly in the hate camp and we both changed our minds.

My main big surprise of the past week is I actually quite like Marmite. I might even love it.

Their latest ad campaign launched in June is fun, sure, but how much room is left for people changing taste? Not so much it seems.

Our tastes change over time, if you go as far as strongly conveying the idea it's about genetic material then how can Marmite acquire new consumers, as in haters deciding to give it another go rather than simply leaving it like it's set for life... Similarly if it's a given these are the two camps, do many self professed lovers share their appreciation, or do they give up because some are just haters..?

As much as I appreciate their brand positioning and advertising, I'd say going into genetics and scanning babies is taking a step too far - unless it's all just a joke, but the video seems almost serious enough that I wonder if people find it funny or not?

Publishing videos: 100% of winners gave it a chance

 

I've been publishing podcasts on and off since 2015, mostly audio first, and mostly video streaming since 2020. Thoughts for those thinking about similar ideas.

My main Ice Cream for Everyone podcast has been on a hiatus since the pandemic; at the moment I publish these conversations with my friend James D'Souza. We call them our creative sessions.

During the first pandemic lockdowns, James was making efforts to create and share interesting video classes for his pupils. He was about to give his class an assignment about marketing a board game business, and reached out asking me to record an interview for his class.

That reminded us how much we enjoyed chatting, and given I'd just began teaching as well, we came up with the idea of answering recurring questions from his high school pupils, and my advertising communications students.

That was Teaching Tangents and we made two seasons of it before feeling like we were repeating ourselves. We wrapped the show up, and looked at what was next, and came up with what might be an unusual mix.

We really like having a frequent chat sharing what we're up to, I find them generally encouraging, inspiring, and agreed we might want to keep talking somehow.

The last show wound up partly because we didn't care to spend too much time to formalise, improve, or promote it. 

That said, the idea of being live streamed was appealing. 

We like doing it and occasionally (surprisingly, even), someone of the average 1-10 viewers per video comments and says they enjoy it too. 

I guess it's our own dance like no one's watching version of Wayne's World. 

It's just us talking and geeking about books, movies, games, personal knowledge management, note-taking, technology, music, meditation, coaching, work, play roleplaying games, etc. It's pretty random.

Yesterday we talked about the Tales from the Loop tabletop RPG, inspired by Simon Stålenhag's art, which also led to a series on Prime Video I haven't seen just yet. We also talked about note-taking apps: Logseq, Roam Research, Evernote, Obsidian.

I'm sharing this because we both hear about students' (or clients) aspirations to publish videos, or podcasts. 

Just as an example, Youtube has 2.6 billion monthly active users, and only 4.4% of them have created their own channel. Around 321,100 channels have over 100k subscribers ; around 32,300 have 1M, and only 5 over 100M (source).

The piece of advice I read most often as I was planning for my first podcast seems correct; the most important is to find something you enjoy doing even if few people see or listen to it - which is what's most likely.

It begins with making something and publishing. Keep it simple and get out there to begin with.

As the old French Lottery slogan used to say: "100% of winners gave it a chance" (100% des gagnants ont tenté leur chance).

Noticing media: Disneyland Paris par Toutatis!

I noticed this good outdoor media placement at Disneyland Paris, which kind of leads me to admit something about my arguably leisurely lifestyle.

It’s a long story involving multiple trips with my nieces and nephews last summer and over Halloween last year, but in short I have an annual pass to Disneyland Paris. So from time to time, I get out my home office, and on to the RER A train to the happiest place on Earth (or Europe/France).

Yesterday, I worked at Disney’s Starbucks for a few hours, wandered around the park, did a couple of rides, lunch and some more work at Disney Village (a burger, at the newly rebranded Royal Pub. I have thoughts about its transformation from King Ludwig’s Castle, maybe for another time).

I was heading back home when I noticed these ads in the train station, for Parc Asterix. They just launched an exciting new roller coaster (2nd of its kind in the world), Toutatis, the Celtic god invoked by Asterix and his Gaulish friends in the comics.

The theme park enthusiasts I follow on Youtube and who tried the ride for the park’s PR day are all raving about it, and I’m looking forward to trying it. That’s where you might think I should be wary of market orientation and remember I’m not the target audience, except well, sometimes I kind of am.

Some takeaways:

 Outdoor ads on the public transportation system and on your competitor’s turf might seem basic. But it is also a solid foundation, I appreciate it. Disneyland is similarly boasting a campaign for the end of the 30th anniversary (in September) all over town, however they don’t have actual news, they’ve been celebrating their 30th anniversary for like a year now. It’s partly reminding everyone Spring time is here and it’s a good to visit theme parks, and/or a response to Parc Asterix’s actual new news.

 It would have been fun to see an ad specially created for the placement by Disneyland’s train station, though possibly only of interest to adland and theme park geeks, so not necessarily worth it – and taking away from Parc Asterix’s actual main news and goal of the campaign to be single-minded about promoting their new roller coaster.

 That last point is important for the enthusiasts because the roller coasters at Disneyland Paris are nowhere as good as the ones in Parc Asterix, and I was reminded seeing these ads. Disney’s coasters are old and rough. The rebrands of Space Mountain into Star Wars, and the Rock’n’Roller Coaster reopening as part of the Avengers Campus last year were met with disappointment or even outrage by fans (and myself: altogether too dark, rough, disorienting vs. fun).

I have some time to notice and write things given I just finished a couple of client projects. I’m looking for new gigs, please keep in touch if I can help with your marketing strategy.

Occam's Razor around the fall line

 

I'm going skiing soon, and as I was planning the trip I noticed similarities with the ways I approach a strategy work project.

A few years ago, after I finished working at Energy BBDO in Chicago, I caught up with a couple of ex-colleagues for a drink and found out there were rumours about me in the office: people thought I was super wealthy because I went away on ski trips. 

I first learned to ski when I was about 9 years old in France, during "classe de neige" school trip. I loved it but that was the only time I skied. My parents didn't ski, we didn't really have enough money or interest to go on ski holidays in my teenage years. It kind of stayed on my radar far in the background, as something that would be nice to maybe do again, some day.

I ended up re-learning to ski many years later, on a holiday with one of my best friends in 2016. I got totally hooked. It's actually the first time in my life I am so invested in a physical activity, to be honest.

I realise skiing is an expensive sport, generally reserved for wealthy people, and/or people living right by the mountains. I think I do well financially, even better than many, but I don't come from a wealthy family.

After describing the hostel dorm rooms and friends' places where I tend to hang out when skiing, one of them had an aha moment and realised it wasn't so much that I was rich, but rather that I didn't have the same travel comfort requirements they had when traveling.

Part of this is certainly down to budgeting priorities. There's also the satisfaction I get from organising a trip independently, looking for the best permutations of trains, planes, and automobiles, so to speak.

I can't help researching, strategising, and optimising plans. Which I suppose is also what I do with work and clients.

Ideally, any given strategy ends up seemingly simple. It has also likely taken me a long while to gather enough information and pursue long-winded ideas to finally get to that simplest result. The best strategies even look like they should have been obvious from the beginning, except it wasn't or couldn't be seen back then.

Occam's Razor, in philosophy and as defined in Wikipedia, "is the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. It is also known as the principle of parsimony or the law of parsimony. [...] Popularly, the principle is sometimes inaccurately paraphrased as "The simplest explanation is usually the best one.""

When skiing, the "fall line" is the steepest, most direct way down the hill. Skis should be perpendicular to the fall line, depending on your ability level, how steep the slope is, what the general shape of the mountain is, how the snow is, and also how you're feeling like skiing at that particular moment. 

I like to think you end up sort of playing with Occam's Razor when skiing, in that you're gliding back and forth around and across the fall line, controlling your speed when turning, getting a feel for the slope and where the fall line is. Larger, broader turns allow you to control speed and slow down. Shorter, faster, narrower turns directed towards the fall line have you accelerate.

When the slope is shallow, you can easily point your skis into the fall line and go straight ahead. The steeper and narrower it becomes, the more you have to turn your skis away from the fall line to get down safely, and in the most parsimonious fashion. You need to ski on your edges, which should be sharp, kind of like Occam's idea of a razor, shaving a path down the slope, turn by turn. 

I feel there are similarities with the way I might approach a new, presumably tricky enough, strategic challenge: considering ways to navigate it that aren't immediately relevant to a direct solution. Instead, I'll take side turns that generate new understanding and perspectives, which will strengthen the outcome.

It's arguable how close this really is to Occam's Razor, which is why I mentioned playing with it. When it comes to travel plans and skiing, I'm not necessarily looking for the direct path. Depending on time and budget, I'm after a fun, interesting, maybe even long-winded route.

At the beginning of this winter, it didn't look like I'd be able to ski much. Luckily that changed. After much time optimising and scheming (and a few urgent client projects), in ten days I'll be excitedly lugging all my ski gear around from Paris, to Vars on a night bus, then a weekend in Venice with my girlfriend, on to Cortina d'Ampezzo in the Dolomites, across the Austrian border to ski around Innsbruck, a quick stop to check out St Anton am Arlsberg, and then looping back to Paris via Zurich on the train.

All that to probably brag about my trip, and say that if you enjoy the idea of a strategic thinker playing with brand challenges like they would glide around a ski slope while connecting random notions like Occam's Razor or Lateral Thinking that I ended up removing, please give me a shout, and please comment about your skiing plans or problem solving approach (and if you want to go skiing together some time, particularly if you're a little better than I am, and/or if you have access to affordable accommodation in a ski resort)!

PS: Thank you James D'Souza for the encouragements to get back to writing & James Whatley for reminding me to write about what I'm interested in.

The Fool: His Social & Literary History - book review

I thought I’d share thoughts and notes about a book I just finished!

First published in 1935, The Fool by Enid Welsford is a rich, extensively researched, and one of the few existing studies of the character of the buffoon in history across cultures, literature, the stage, and finally the screen. From his first recorded appearance in ancient Greece all the way to Charlie Chaplin as the latest successor of the characters’ traditions at the time of writing.

Enid Welsford tells the wild stories of witty parasites, laughter-makers (and/or laughed at), hunchbacks, dwarves, dimwits, jokers, and mischief makers – first through historical accounts, then imagined, and sometimes both.

Fun fact: the paperback re-edition from 1968 I managed to find boasts a sticker saying the original price of the book was £1.10.

I paid about 30 times that amount.The Fool, Court-fool, Court-jester, Buffoon, Harlequin, and Clown are all related characters, sometimes one and the same, even. Though the author splits the book between recorded history and fantasy, it seems challenging to be clear cut about exactly where reality ends (often for lack of clear records beyond royal accounting books) and mythical traits begin.

I’d never read anything quite like this, nearly everything I was reading was completely new, or new perspectives on knowledge I took for granted. Research is also in original language: whole passages of the book are in French and German.

On the topic of myth, the chapter about the Fool as Poet and Clairvoyant, talks about Merlin, the Arthurian legend character – who typically makes me think of a classic high wizard or mage. In fact, the character is correctly named Myrddin, and in the 1932 The Growth of Literature, a Professor Chadwick apparently makes a credible argument for the character to appear as a naked, hairy madman and bard, in two different documents and poems from Wales and Scotland.

The book doesn’t feature many actual examples of witty jests, though I enjoyed this story, apparently from the 14th century, in La Nef des fols du monde:

“It happened one day in Paris that a quarrel broke out between a street porter having sat down to eat his dinner near the shop-door, in order that his fare of plain bread might be made more savoury by the smell of the roasted meat, was annoyed to find the shopkeeper avaricious enough to charge him for this privilege. A fight ensued and the court-fool ‘Seigni Johan’, who was called in to conciliate the brawlers, pronounced the solemn judgement that the porter should pay for the smell of the roast with the sound of his money.”

I wanted to read this because I found the character of the Fool and Joker quite fascinating, and close to my interests about studying play. I was also curious about the historical relationship between this figure, comedy, and power. This comedian figure had a place next to kings in the middle ages (admittedly it was also a tragic figure at times), then in some cases was pitted against religious authorities, and finally seems to have ended up as an entertainer – separate from power.

Comedy and humour, even though important and human, don’t seem to have much dedicated space and time in the modern corporate world, which I think is kind of interesting, and I might have a book idea about it. I also figured that reading books few others have read these days, may lead to thinking and ideas few others have too.

To paraphrase a point made by the author at the end of the book, if one imagines wisdom on a spectrum, you might find a rational intellectual, learned wisdom on one end, and perhaps something opposite on the other end, a kind of natural, instinctual wisdom, so obvious it’s silly – that is where the Fool lives, and thrives.

“So perhaps we may add a fourth order of fools; there are those who get slapped, there are those who are none the worse for their slapping, there are those who adroitly change places with the slappers, and occasionally there are those who enquire, ‘What do slaps matter to the man whose body is made of indiarubber, and whose mind is of quicksilver, and who can even – greatest triumph of all – persuade you for the moment that such indeed is your case?’ For the Fool is a great untrusser of our slaveries, and comedy is the expression of the spirit of the Fool.” – Enid Welsford