thiswaycomessomethingwicked

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Mitani Takuya

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

every writing tip article and their mother: dont ever use adverbs ever!

me, shoveling more adverbs onto the page because i do what i want: just you fucking try and stop me

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We have one eye-witness account of Ficino himself in performance, by Bishop Campano: 'If curly-haired Apollo should play upon Marsilio's cithara, Apollo would fall defeated in both dexterity of hand and singing. There is frenzy; when he sings, as a lover to the singing of his beloved, he plucks his lyre in harmony with the melody and rhythm of the song. Then his eyes burn, he leaps to his feet, and he discovers music which he never learnt by rote.'

this is amazing and I love it

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In a letter to Paul of Middelburg, written when he was nearly sixty, Marsilio Ficino looks back over a lifetime of cultural achievements in his native city: 'This age, like a golden age, has brought back to light those liberal disciplines that were practically extinguished: grammar, poetry, oratory, painting, sculpture, architecture, music and the ancient singing of songs to the Orphic lyre.' He is referring to both his own and his friends' well-attested skill at improvising or composing musical settings for the hymns of Orpheus, which he himself had translated from the Greek, but which he had not published for fear that his readers would suspect him of reinstating the cults of ancient gods and daemons. Despite Ficino's initial caution, however, we have ample evidence that their use, primarily as part of a ritual activity in the practice of natural magic, lay at the very heart of his work.

-from Angela Voss's "Orpheus Redivivus: The Musical Magic of Marsilio Ficino" to be found in Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, his Philosophy, his Legacy

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I honestly blame the rise of anti-intellectualism and things like hating on old books because they're not up to modern standards on why people can't think with nuance and are afraid of bucking the norm or forming their own opinions. You're going to read Of Mice And Men and you're going to be fucking uncomfortable because that's the goddamn point. You're going to read the original Romeo and Juliet and remember the whole point is to make fun of how stupid and dramatic teenagers are and you're going to sit there and be uncomfortable because the only way you're going to expand your horizons is if you're feeling weird and off and hate it for awhile.

You're going to have to sit in front of the trolley problem as hate that there's no "win" scenario because that's the point. There is no Everybody Wins and Nothing Bad Happens in real life 99% of the time.

You need to be uncomfortable. You need to be conflicted. You cannot be a complete, nuanced, and intelligent person if you refuse to engage with the gray. You are just a bad person at that point. And a stupid one. Because I'm done pulling punches.

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‘And this Mr. Fowler,’ Vimes flips open his notebook, ‘where could I find him?’ ‘Gods if I know. I’ve not the foggiest where he’s holed himself up’ Downey touches the brim of his hat. ‘It has been a pleasure, Commander, do tell the Patrician I was on top form today. I shall do the same for you and with that approach we might, with any luck, placate him so he won’t require this again for another six to ten months.’ Vimes makes no strong affirmative but the grunt, the toss of a half-raised eyebrow, reluctant nod, tells Downey that the Commander is in, more or less, full agreement with him.

Watch out Vetinari, Downey and Vimes are going to start teaming up on you. They'll rope in Sybil so it's full triangulation.

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DAILY AFFIRMATIONS

I do not need to retrench

I cannot have enough looking‐glasses

I can always go and re-read the baronetage if I am upset

I am the handsomest person in England

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‘I’ll put another thing on the table for you,’ Vimes continues as they resume their way down the alley. ‘Ridcully says that he saw the beast, not clearly but enough to know that it was what he was after – I don’t know, your lordship, don’t look at me like that—’ ‘How could he know it was what he was after if he’s never seen one before?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Vimes repeats, annoyed. ‘Don’t put Ridcully’s nonsense on my shoulders.’ ‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Downey sneers. ‘And I’m the Queen of Lancre.'

The energy these two bring to a crime scene is *chef's kiss*

Vimes stubs out his cigar with a cautious glance around. He then jabs a finger into Downey’s chest, as though Downey were making trouble, and hisses, ‘I’m only telling you all of this because the Patrician will have my hide if I don’t. But he said he’d have yours if you don’t cooperate so I think we’re in a nice mess together.’ ‘I have been cooperating,’ Downey insists. ‘And very nicely, too.’ Vimes ignores this.

It's the Cain and Able sibling vibes that emanate from them. Like, you two are so messy.

Sybil and Vetinari make them wear their "get along shirt" for the sheer entertainment value of it.

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You know, it’s not the Taylor Swift/Justin Trudeau dating scheme I wanted - since Canada deserves a break up album about our former PM - but it’s a close second gotta say

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Was wishing there was a positivity post for original fiction writers since I see so many about how fanfic writers are doing so much for their communities even when they're not actively writing, and then I thought:

Be the change you want to see in the world.

So this is a positivity post for the writers out here who are working very hard on stories with no established community. Who can't talk about their blorbos and plot lines and brainstorming to anyone and expect them to know what any of it means. Who don't have much to share publicly, but are hoping they will one day.

You're doing a lot of hard work, and I recognize and appreciate what you're putting into the world, even when you're resting.

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“hes a woman to me” IS HE? or are you equating women with submissive character traits you've arbitrarily put on a random man

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now I'm just imagining Ficino wandering around the woods with this doing his little orphic hymn thing. It's interesting to think about how he would have sounded as he sang and played.

(and now down a rabbit hole, found this video too of someone playing one which is fun)

The woodcut from Pulci’s poem is meant to represent Marsilio doing one of his Orphic Hymn sessions

@centaurianthropology I love that we get to see his Orphic Lyre, as his instrument was termed. Would you say that’s a lyra da braccio? (Hard to tell I guess, given that it’s just a woodcut)

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So, when Savonarola openly criticises in the Triumph of the Cross, printed in 1497, the «new and pernicious» cult of the intermediate beings introduced by some ancient philosophers, he is probably alluding to Ficino’s revival of Neoplatonic demonology and theurgy. In this work Savonarola explicitly attacks those who compare Christ with Apollonius of Tyana, Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, a comparison that had been frequently made by Ficino.

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Many of Ficino's friends recognised a particular quality in his music-making, a gift that led them to name him Orpheus, the mythical musician who was said to change men, animals and stones with his lyre-playing. The poet Naldo Naldi even affirms that in Ficino the very soul of Orpheus has been reincarnated: "Hence he soothes the unyielding oaks with his lyre and his song and softens once more the hearts of wild beasts." However, it is in the words of his friend Poliziano that we begin to glimpse a greater significance in Ficino's association with Orpheus; the poet was accustomed to hear Marsilio discourse on the secrets of the heavens, on healing, on metaphysics; "Often," he says, "his wise lyre chases out these grave thoughts and his voice follows the song springing up from under his expressive fingers, like Orpheus, interpreter of Apollo's songs … Then when he has finished, drawn on by the Muses's furore I return home, return to the composition of verses, and, ecstatically invoking Phoebus, I touch the divine lyre with my plectrum." Elsewhere the poet concludes that "[Marsilio's] lyre… far more successful than the lyre of Thracian Orpheus, has brought back from the underworld what is, if I am not mistaken, the true Eurydice, that is Platonic wisdom with its most all-embracing understanding."

there's something in here with Marsilio being Orpheus and his letter to Giovanni saying that Giovanni is behaving like stones and willing him to transform and fly back to Marsilio.

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The woodcut from Pulci’s poem is meant to represent Marsilio doing one of his Orphic Hymn sessions

@centaurianthropology I love that we get to see his Orphic Lyre, as his instrument was termed. Would you say that’s a lyra da braccio? (Hard to tell I guess, given that it’s just a woodcut)

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Ficino found it necessary to revise this position, making a strenuous attempt to differentiate his own notion of Platonic furor from the “melancholic genius” (ingenium melancholicum) of a pathological Epicurean. As he put it: “When his madness was roused on account of his black bile, Lucretius first tried to slaughter his soul verbally in the third book of his On the Nature of Things; then slaughtered his body with a sword.” The philosopher here is recounting a familiar story from the poet’s biographical tradition. The only problem is that he is getting it slightly wrong—maybe even rewriting it—which seems not entirely inappropriate since the tradition itself was more than likely made up in the first place. As St. Jerome explains, Lucretius had drunk a love philter administered by his wife, was driven to madness as a result, and wrote his poem in the “intervals between the insanity” (per intervalla insanie). Ficino exploits the ambiguities of the story. In his version, Lucretius’s poem and its philosophy appear to be the very product of madness—of the black bile that, as the philosopher tells us, leads to melancholy and, worse, atheism. In this recasting, the Epicurean poet has composed De rerum natura not in spite of his madness (as the tradition has it), but as an expression of it. - "Burning Lucretius: On Ficino’s Lost Commentary" by Gerard Passannante

(noting that the biographical account of Lucretius has been disputed and is generally considered to be inaccurate. But this was not known in Ficino's time.)

Ficino exploiting the ambiguity to make it so madness is integral to creation is very On Brand for him, considering his own mental health challenges. I have always loved how he turns madness on its head to see it as an integral part of who he is and not something to be rid of.

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wait actually