474 - Mr. Blue Tells Us All About Castles, German Is Funniest In English, Science Discovers Life In Our Town, and The Truth About North Korean Truths

[10:01 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

I like traveling, and I like coming home

[10:02 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Do you have, like, a list Mr. Blue, or you just wanna go everywhere?

[10:02 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

In my head there's places I wanna see and places I don't care to see

[10:03 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

The future Mrs. McGreen really wants to see castles.  She loves fairy tales.

[10:04 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

Yeah. castles are cool.

They're so normal in Europe

You just drive and... boom ...there's a castle. Not even on a map, or with signs or anything.

Many are on private property.

Like ruined ones - not the fancy ones like Neuschwanstein.

[10:05 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

If I went to one country to see the most castles, where would I want to go?

[10:05 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

Probably Germany

Plenty in the UK too, though.

[10:05 AM] 

Was thinking German too

[10:05 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

France is good but Germany probably has the greatest mix

Because there's different eras of castles

You have the really old style ones that sit ominously on mountain tops with walls and turrets...

Then you have the schlosses that are more like palaces, that are in more open areas and are very symmetrical and with gardens and stuff, usually in or on the edge of cities.

Then you have the revival castles like Neuschwanstein, which is actually quite new but was built in the motif of medieval castles

[10:07 AM]  Mr. McGreen:

Oh ok

I'm seriously considering taking a look into a vacation with castles for her

Little money to tour them?

[10:07 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

Depends

Some are still owned by the families that inherited them

Some are owned by the cities/states

Like, Nurnberg castle - it's literally part of the fabric of the city

[10:08 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Sometime I should pay you to lay out a trip for me.

[10:08 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

You really can't tell where the castle ends and the city begins

What I like are old towns

Like being in a city and looking around and realizing that if you block out the cars and the people's clothes, it's basically unchanged from what it looked like in like, 1800, or even 1500.

It's the next best thing to time travel.

[10:09 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

I'll dress like Gaston for the entirety of the trip

[10:09 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

The amount of towns in Europe that are like that is completely overwhelming.

Even Nurnberg... There are probably 10-15 castles in Nurnberg alone. Some aren't "traditional" castles. Like they may just be manor homes or schlosses, but still.

[10:11 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Did you get to see Dracula's castle?

[10:11 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

No, that's in Transylvania

[10:11 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Bran castle?

[10:11 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

Vlad Tepes *real* castle isn't impressive

It's not even finished

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poenari_Castle

Bran castle looks cool, but its not Dracula's

Romania has some cool castles

[10:12 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Oh ok. The real one looks like a fort on a hill with no roof

[10:12 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

Yeah

And several types of brick

It looks like they ran out of one kind about halfway up the wall

[10:13 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Amateurs

[10:16 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8048/8145824511_3364350cfc_b.jpg

In Rhineland-Palatinate

[10:16 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

So like, were castles a miniature town or did a single family live there?

[10:17 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

Some were a family plus its workers

And they'd double as some kind of fortification in case the nearby town was under siege so people could take refuge there.

But they're all different

Prague castle is basically an entire town. It has churches and everything behind the castle walls

The weird thing is some of the best preserved medieval German towns are actually in Romania, because Transylvania was settled by German immigrants after the Carpathian Basin was wiped out by diseases and Mongol & Ottoman invasions.

The Hungarian Empire invited Germans to re-settle the area, and because they weren't demolished during WW2, many are well preserved.

Like Sighisoara

[12:42 PM]  Mr. Blue: 

I'd like to learn German to read Kafka

He supposedly used the German language quirks to good effect that aren't easily translatable

He often made extensive use of a characteristic particular to the German language which permits long sentences that sometimes can span an entire page. Kafka's sentences then deliver an unexpected impact just before the full stop—this being the finalizing meaning and focus. This is due to the construction of subordinate clauses in German which require that the verb be positioned at the end of the sentence. Such constructions are difficult to duplicate in English

[12:44 PM] 

"So anyway, a cockroach is awkward...to turn into!...for a human."

[12:44 PM]  Mr. Blue: 

LOL

That's the exact example they give!

[12:44 PM] 

Seriously?  Hehe!

[12:45 PM]  Mr. Blue: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka#Translation_problems_to_English

[12:45 PM] 

Heh

[12:46 PM]  Mr. Blue: 

I'm surprised “cockroach” in German isn't like... “KleinTellerSchwein” or something

(small plated pig)

https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/funny-animal-names-in-german

[12:49 PM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Sea Pig, lol

[12:51 PM] 

Stinktier

...I prefer "Fart Squirrel" myself

[12:57 PM]  Mr. Blue: 

Grosspfurzenmaus

Big fart mouse

Fledermaus... so lazy

This reminds me of a Jim Gaffigan bit

"That there's a male seahorse."

"It's having a baby."

"Uhh, the male has the babies!"

[stubborn german biologist] "That's a mouse."

"It just flew away."

"Yeah. It's...a flying mouse."

[1:09 PM] 

German. The Tinker Toy language

"What's it called?"

"What does it look like?"

"A big pointy nosed cow with armor on"

"Ohhhhh! A Großespitzengepanzertekuh"

[1:10 PM]  Mr. Blue: 

Heh

[1:22 PM] 

Or "nashorn" if you wanna be boring...

[8:15 AM] 

"Team shocked to find complex culture and robust population in (Town), Pennsylvania."

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/news/a27655/scientists-find-life-in-earths-most-barren-hellhole/

[8:16 AM] Mr. Blue

Hehe

[8:10 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Any opening statements for WW3?  Looks like Trump is trying to make an impact on future generations' social studies classes.

[8:25 AM] 

Opening statements for WW3? 

[8:26 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Trump and Kim Jong Un are going at it, and I think they are both stupid enough to fire something.

[8:26 AM] 

Ok.  How about this?

(Churchill voice) "Never have such low IQs...done so much...to so many..."

[8:26 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

I suspect Un is actually slow.

[8:27 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

Its hard to tell how much control he has.

They'd have to be pretty stupid to strike first.

Their quality control sucks ass, their missiles frequently fall into the ocean, and even if he could nuke Seattle or bomb some strategic spots in Guam, that would only give the US an excuse to blow the Hell out of them.

[8:28 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Did you know he golfed a perfect game as a child and then just decided to retire from it because he couldn't get any better?  That's what we are up against!

[8:28 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

That was Jong-Il not Un

Most of that stuff is fake

[8:28 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

LOL Yeah, I'd guessed.

[8:28 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

No, like they don't claim stories like that in NK.

Like the golf thing or the story where he publicly executed someone with a missile... Fake.

[8:28 AM] 

“Most”

[8:29 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Oh really?

Oh, ok.

I was hoping

[8:29 AM] 

"The truth is, he only got 17 holes in one.  Hole 8 he took a Gimmie."

[8:30 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

So maybe he's really a nice guy and we got it all wrong.

Poor Mr. Un

[8:31 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

Mr. Kim...

He's still bad.

But if you hear news out of North Korea that sounds crazy, it's probably fake.

I read a thing that actually dug into the sources of that stuff...like the 18 holes in 1 or
claiming to have invented the hamburger, and they mostly originate on Chinese blogs. And they get to Chinese language fake news sites, which get translated and picked up by US news outlets as genuine.

And NK is so closed off that they can't - or don't bother - refuting it.

There was one where they claimed NK found unicorn fossils. They just found fossils. Nothing official mentioned unicorns.

473 - How to Build The Green-Rush Ghost Town Of The Future, That Time Mr. McGreen Asked A Failed Novelist How To Write A Novel, Also Phoque That Biche, and All The Things To Like About Amsterdam

[11:29 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

"Ahh! Big Marijuana is trying to put us out in the cold!" http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/40824837/marijuana-company-buys-entire-us-town-to-create-cannabis-friendly-municipality

[11:48 AM] 

"The cannabis revolution that's going on here in the US has the power to completely revitalise communities in the same way gold did during the 19th Century."

Yes...it'll bring in skyrocketing inflation, whores, rotgut alcohol, fighting, murdering, raping the environment, con artists...

Gold didn't really do much good for people living near sources of gold, really.

Like...ever

Once it spread out a bit...ok

[11:52 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

Definitely not outside of the first few prospectors that could just scoop the stuff off the ground

Most lost their asses... The entrepreneurs that exploited gullible prospectors probably did better

Probably like 99% of prospectors never found enough gold to even recoup their losses

[11:55 AM] 

Yup.  The pot company could have maybe picked a better comparison.

[11:55 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

I can't think of any.

A town built on one industry is doomed to fail.

"Strike that... What I meant was it will do what the steel industry did for the rust belt! I mean uhh, what gambling did for Atlantic City.  No... wait.."

[11:59 AM] 

Heheh

[12:00 PM]  Mr. Brown: 

A community built on bars is going to survive, right? lol

[12:00 PM] 

How about: "has the power to completely vitalize an area the same way that settling and developing a robust community in a frontier region did during the 19th century."

"Why...before people moved into that valley, built homes, started farming and started businesses, it's yearly GDP was $0!  Look at it now!"

"So look to the brave American pioneers who came to the wilderness and discovered a rich lode of resources and created well paying jobs."

“Pot...uh...will be like that.”

[12:04 PM]  Mr. Blue: 

No Title

Recent scholarship confirms that merchants made far more money than miners during the Gold Rush.[100][101] The wealthiest man in California during the early years of the rush was Samuel Brannan, a tireless self-promoter, shopkeeper and newspaper publisher.^[102] Brannan opened the first supply stores in Sacramento, Coloma, and other spots in the goldfields. Just as the rush began he purchased all the prospecting supplies available in San Francisco and re-sold them at a substantial profit.^[102]

Apparently California waterways are still contaminated with mercury to this day

[12:07 PM] 

Not surprised at all

I imagine the arsenic levels are nothing to be proud of either.

[8:18 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Mr. Silver, I need you to teach me to write a novel.

I like the idea I had.

[8:19 AM] 

OK

Are you fluent in any languages?

[8:19 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Somewhat in English

I did journalism all through high school

[8:22 AM] 

There you go.  Steps 1 through 10 complete.

Got #11..."an idea"?

The ultimate pitfall to writing longform is getting into a habit and keeping it flowing.

I took info from NaNoWrMo after the 1st time I "played" and wrote up a better set of guidelines to use, and a variety of writing tracks/games to keep going.

[9:28 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

So were do you start?  Rough character skeletons?

[9:29 AM] 

Hehe...well... It was in the rules, actually.

I believe it was "Don't write anything.  Just think about it."

I'll find it.  I haven't looked in a long time.

[9:30 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Ok, thank you.

[9:31 AM] 

But if you are a person who can tell a story, you can write a "core".

[9:38 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Didn't you have writing group get-togethers at one point, Mr. Silver?

My uncle did something like that, but with stocks.

[9:42 AM] 

I cheer-led a lot of writers over a few years.

The one published more than one for real.

The other has two on Kindle.

A third has become a short story machine.

A fourth has written like 4 or 5 but couldn't get picked up. 

Me? I'm at 1 and 4/5ths completed novels. Unpublished.

Well...as far as how to write your novel... Do you write other original stuff?  Short stories? 

[9:02 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Nope.  I used to write songs in high school like everyone else.

Attempted blogs

And journalism

Which is an approach one could take in this case

Anything from editorials to reviews

[9:04 AM] 

The entirety of “Dracula” is news clippings, diary entries and letters, you know.

[9:05 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Oh? Ok.

I never read “Dracula”

[9:08 AM] 

Really threw me the first time I read it for a while.

"This intro material is awesome.  I wonder when the narrative gets going.  (leafs forward...leafs forward...leafs forward...) Ummm."

[9:09 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Haha

[9:18 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

Nosferatu is just Dracula with a different name right?

[9:18 AM] 

Nosferatu was a German name for a vampire.  When they made the movie, they didn't get the rights to do it.  Figured “we'll change the name and it will be fine”.

It wasn't.

If it wasn't for some people who held onto copies of “Nosferatu”, it would have been long destroyed.

[9:20 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

Yeah, I remember now.

The filmmakers didn't make a dime...maybe even lost money on it because of lawsuits.

[9:21 AM] 

Nod

They produced a fine version of Dracula though

[9:27 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

BLAH, BLAHHH!

Sorry, that was the count

[10:43 AM] 

So, Mr. McGreen.  That document teach you all about the sado-masochism that is novel writing?

[10:48 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

I'm going to have a novel in 8 weeks

[10:58 AM] 

Novel core...but yes.

The core is the thing

Finish one = you wrote a novel and it feels awesome.

The rest is editing and filling in.

[9:31 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

Cradle in French is couffin

As in a baby's cradle

[9:31 AM] 

Gothy bascinet

[9:31 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

So my baby sleeps in a coffin

That's hardcore

[9:32 AM] 

Whereas it's probably more "we put the body at rest in it's cradle"

[9:33 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

I like mine more.

[9:33 AM] 

But yes...be sure to wear all black and play a dirge when putting the child to sleep

French has some funny things like that

Look at a box of paperclips from Canada...they are "trombones"

[9:38 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Wah waaaaahhhhhhhhh

[9:52 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

I think of all European countries I'd like to see Amsterdam.

I hear its beautiful

Or wait

Is that a city?

[9:53 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

City

[9:54 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

My friend said the people are awesome, city is well kept, lots of things to do.

[9:54 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

Yeah, it's pretty clean

Everyone rides bikes, cars are rare

In the old city at least

[9:55 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

That's about the only thing I'd like about a city - I could walk/run/bike

I'd rather do those than drive

Part of me says "Oh there's stuff to do, tho!"

But I'm kind of a homebody, normally

[9:59 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

There's food and sights to see

Sites, I guess

[9:59 AM]

Its both, Mr. Blue

[10:00 AM]  Mr. McGreen:

I mean living in a city full time, not visiting.

I'd like to vacation but I prefer to be rural, usually

[10:00 AM] 

I like some stuff in cities...but I hate cities

[10:29 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

All the buildings in Amsterdam are crooked.

They're all sinking or leaning to one side

Nobody seems to care though

Drugs and prostitutes are just kinda out in the open

[10:30 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Red light district?

[10:30 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

Yeah, but also everywhere else

[10:30 AM]  Mr. McGreen: 

Oh, ok

[10:31 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

Every coffee shop sells weed

Of course none of the prostitutes are Dutch, which is a shame because Dutch women are *kisses fingertips*.

Tall and lanky and dirty blonde

Most of the prostitutes looked Asian or Eastern European

[10:36 AM] 

All the Dutch ones probably went online

Heh

"You COULD stand in a window in your knickers if you want.  OR..."

[10:39 AM]  Mr. Blue: 

Probably