A Cute Commission

by Ariela

Some commissions are easy. Some clients are wonderful to work with. Some projects are touching. And when you are very lucky, you get all three in one.

I was lucky like that recently. A fellow was referred to me who wanted to get a design done with the letter shin, his daughter's first initial. With a Hebrew name, she wouldn't be likely to find her name on commonly available novelty keychains, etc. and he wanted to get a design just for her. As someone else with a Hebrew name who could never get a novelty item off the rack, I was very taken with the project.

He suggested a few design elements he knew would appeal to her - a sun, butterflies, dinosaurs - but left the actual design entirely up to my discretion. These were the result:

He plans to print them on notebook covers and a tshirt for her. I really hope she likes them!

A Short Guide to Scribal Errors

by Ariela

The curse of engaging in a craft that many other people have done for centuries before you is that it is hard to come up with something original. But the flip side is that it's hard to screw up in a totally original way, too.

Calligraphy has been around for millennia, and basically any cock-up that can be done has been. Moreover, we have terms for them! And many of them are in Greek, because lots of them were made by monks copying bibles.

There are lots of ways to screw up writing a text. For now, I will only deal with the ones that arise from unintentional mistakes made while copying a text by looking at a reference document (called the exemplar). A different set of mistakes can be made if you are writing out a text that is being read to you, or writing from memory. I will also only deal with errors that occur in languages based on alphabets that are written horizontally; there is some overlap with syllabic or ideographic writing and vertical writing, but each does have their own pitfalls.

All examples below use the text of Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

Haplography

This is when a scribe omits a chunk of text due to the eye skipping from one section to another. Dropping one letter by mistake is not haplography, it has to be more. There are several sub-types of haplography.

Homeo teleuton (also homeoteleuton): An eye-skip due to words or phrases having the same ending.

The word "child" is at the end of a phrase several times in this paragraph, leading to an eye jump from one instance to another. The text in purple is where the problem originates, and the text in green is omitted in the copy.

Homeo arcton (also homeoarchy): An eye skip due to words or phrases having the same beginning.

Here we have two sentences in short order that begin "There was a..." Jumping from the first to the second, we omit a bunch of text.

When the homeoarchy or homeoteleuton occurs at the beginning or end of a line, right up against the margin, it is a type of parablepsis.

Parablepsis is, according to Wiktionary, is "A circumstance in which a scribe miscopies text due to inadvertently looking to the side while copying, or accidentally skips over some of it." This is a bizarre definition, to my mind, as the punctuation seems to divide it into two completely disparate sets of errors: a) any type of error made due to looking to the side, or b) any omission of a bunch of text for any reason. I think a better definition would be "Haplography that occurs at the beginning or end of a line."

Here we have homeoteleuton that is also parablepsis: the word "public" appears at the end of two lines, and the eye skips from the first to the second.

Dittography

This is where you repeat a sequence. It can be anywhere in length from just a few letters to several lines, depending on how quickly you catch yourself.

Here we have a phrase duplicated. This sort of dittography usually indicates that the scribe's mind wandered in the middle of the line.

Dittography mostly happens when there is a repetitive element in the text, but every once in a while a scribe would just have a total brain fart and reproduce something for no apparent reason.

There's no obvious reason why the line in green was written twice.

It can also happen anywhere within a text.

This is an example of dittography within one word. "Possessed" is written correctly in the original on the left, but has an extra "ess" in the copy on the right.

Transposition

This is where you switch the order of things.

It can cover the swapping of letters in a word.

Here we have a simple letter-order swap. If you just had the copy text on the right, you would probably be able to figure it out.

It also includes the flipping of word order.

Two words are swapped around here. It makes some difference to the meaning of the text, but not a huge amount.

These are both fairly benign examples of transposition. The former is easily spotted and the latter doesn't change the text fundamentally. However, transposition can change the meaning of a text drastically if applied in the wrong place.

Changing the position of one word in this sentence changes its meaning completely.

As bad as this is, it can be much worse. English is a verbose language, and Shelley's writing style is flowery. In terse languages where word order matters (so not Esperanto, for example), moving a word around means greater disruption to the meaning imparted. In Hebrew, where words are generally shorter due to verb and noun constructs based on a three-letter root, swapping two letters can literally mean the difference between the words 'crisis' and 'meat' (שבר/בשר), 'evening' and 'hunger' (ערב/רעב), 'hate' and 'subject/thesis' (שונא/נושא). It is not always clear from context that a mistake occurred. 

How to Prevent Scribal Errors

No matter how careful you are, it's almost impossible to copy out a text of great length without making any mistakes at all. In the 13 years I have been working as a professional calligrapher, I have only once written a text which my proofreader found to be completely without error. Fortunately for me, I do my calligraphy in pencil first, get it proofed, and then ink it after the corrections are made. (That's part of Terri's job.) Other scribes throughout history have not been so lucky. It is possible to fix a mistake made in ink, but the longer the mistake drags on, the harder it is. Also, errors of omission frequently don't leave enough room for fixing.

So the next time you see a tweet from us like this: 

Dittography. Fudge.

— GeekCalligraphy (@GeekCalligraphy) June 29, 2016

You'll know what happened.

Post-WisCon40 Report

by Ariela

Ariela's name badge and program books from WisCon40.

This weekend was WisCon. To say that I had a blast is both true and incomplete. It was so much more than just a good time.

I was promised that it would be a very different con than any other I had attended, and that was very true. To start with, the majority of people I encountered were female presenting, and there was a much higher than usual NB representation. Racial representation was also much more diverse.

Programming had the typical problem of stacking great panels in the same time slots, so no matter what you do you miss something awesome. It was even more intense at WisCon than basically any other con I have attended. Also, they stop panels at mealtimes to encourage people to eat, so they have to cram even more awesome into the slots that are left. The one I probably enjoyed the most was Staying In Your Lane, how to be inclusive without stepping over the line, with Riley as moderator and Mark Oshiro and MedievalPOC as fellow panelists. It was utterly fascinating and all of them were really insightful. (I may have gone and fangirled a bit to MedievalPOC after the panel. Maybe.) My second favorite was probably Class Basics 101, which talked a lot about different constructs of class, intersections of classism and other prejudices, and the differences between the academic study of class vs the experience of being truly poor.

I sat on three panels and had a lovely time with all of them. The moderators were good, fellow panelists were good, and all of them were well attended. None of them were particularly well-tweeted, though. Not sure what it was about the panels I was on that inspired people to take notes on pen and paper. The first panel that I was on, Creating Your Own Religion, also extended into a multi-hour discussion over lunch, which was utterly fascinating. The second panel, SFF Where Religion Works, was the first panel where I have ever cried. We were discussing The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, and all of us got weepy, as expected; we even passed around a tissue box before we started discussing it. The third panel, The Tough Tribute to Fantasyland, was funny and fun, but I had to run out immediately after it ended to check out of the hotel and get my stuff from the art show.

Speaking of which, the art show was smaller than I am used to, and I sold more greeting cards than before but less matted art. Hmm. Lee Moyer assured me that this kind of win-some-lose-some is normal and you never really know what will happen. That made me feel better.

I got earrings from Elise Matthesen at her Haiku Party (she like my haiku!), soaked in the hot tub twice, and danced at the Floomp (which is the big Saturday night dance party). I made an utter cake of myself in front of Charlie Jane Anders when I was standing next to her in line to get salad and she was really kind about it.

Over the course of the weekend, someone did something that made me feel kind of uncomfortable [note: not sexual in nature] and I called them on it. They pushed back, kinda hard, and I decided to just walk away. The next evening, that person came up to me to apologize. They said that they were very sorry they reacted so defensively and that almost immediately after I left they realized that I was completely right. We parted on good terms. This is the kind of con that WisCon is - not only did this person do the emotional work of questioning their reaction, they sought me out to apologize and make amends.

Ariela at the WisCon40 dessert salon and GOH speeches.
Photo courtesy of John Scalzi.

The central experience of the con, for me at least, was the Guest of Honor speeches. They have all of the GOHs speak one after the other, right after the dessert salon. Many people, including the friends who dragooned me into attending WisCon, dress up for this. So I did, too. It made it feel much less like attending a con GOH speech and more like hearing a speech at a fancy dinner. I happen to have liked that. I also suspect that a larger percentage of con attendees came to the GOH speeches than at other cons I have attended. They really are the highlight.

The three GOHs this year were Justine Larblestier, Sofia Samatar, and Nalo Hopkinson.

Justine spoke first. She was hilarious. Like, really, really funny. Also, mad props to the closed captioning typist, who was actually interacting with her in real time, to the point that Justine would pause to see what the typist did with her various sounds of excitement and disgust, and then react to that in turn. She spoke about teens and teen literature and the history of the concept of being a teen, and class, and race, and representation. And she started off so funny and at the end we were all just sitting there with our mouths hanging open feeling struck. Or at least everyone around me was. There wasn't any laughter at the end of her speech, just some really hard truths.

Sofia Samatar spoke next. She was wonderfully eloquent speaking about breaking down the borders between genres, but her speech did not hit me as hard. Perhaps it was because I was not a writer.

Nalo Hopkinson went last. Justine tee'd me up, but Nalo knocked me flat. She addressed the Puppies, gatekeeping, hatred in fandom, how easy it is to descend into mob mentality in the name of social justice and called for us to resist that slide, the guilt that can be paralyzing when we fail and hurt someone, and so much more. Wow. I cannot wait for a transcript of her speech. She also announced that she is creating a new award, the Lemonade Award, for people or organizations who make a significant improvement to the fan community. When she talked about starting off by just awarding certificates, it was all I could do not to leap out of my seat and yell "I volunteer as tribute!" Instead I tweeted at her that I would be happy to make the certificates. Then I went up to her after the speeches were done and volunteered in person, giving her my card. I also probably sounded like a blithering idiot, as I was busy thinking "Your speech gave me all the feels! And that's a good thing and I want you to know that, but my feels are my problem, not yours, and I don't want to make you do any emotional labor over me having feelings!" So I blubbered out something about wanting to volunteer, even though I know that maybe as a straight, white, ciswoman I might not be the best one for the job, or possibly not the right art style, but I wanted to volunteer and here's my card and now I am going to cry and ruin my makeup. (The above photo was taken before said crying took place.)

I have not had a con affect me this much since my first con at Arisia 2011. As then, I did not come home the same person, and I cannot wait to come back next year. I met loads of wonderful people and got to spend time with the wonderful friends who brought me along saying "This is the con you share with the people you love!" None of what I wrote truly captures the effect of the experience.

A+ Will definitely repeat.

Ariela is Off to WisCon (with Art!)

by Ariela

I matted ALL THE THINGS!

I will be at WisCon40 this weekend in Madison, WI! I'm very excited to meet a lot of cool people whom thus far I only know from teh interwebs. There may be some fangirling, too. If you're there, please say hello.

My panel schedule is thus:

Saturday, 10:00-11:15 AM - Creating Your Own Religion
Which SF authors create interesting, believable religions, and which get religion wrong? (What does it mean to "get religion wrong" anyway?) Do made-up religions with intervening gods work better than those without? How can we as writers avoid making mistakes when creating and writing about fictional religions?

Sunday, 4:00-5:15 PM - SFF Where Religion Works
What SFF books depict well the things a religion does in and for society? Examples include Bujold's Chalion, which has actual supernatural miracles and active godly intervention but ALSO priests and faith workers engaging in the world in all the ways religious have done throughout Earth's history. Independent of doctrines on-screen, what authors "get" how religions change a world?

Monday, 10:00-11:15 AM - The Tough Tribute to Fantasyland
Diana Wynne Jones’ Tough Guide to Fantasyland is a fun look at some of the tropes (and clichés) that show up in fantasy stories over and over. The moderator will have a list of some of these tropes and throw them out for panelists to discuss their favorite (or least favorite) examples in fantasy literature over the years.

I will also be showing in the art show, along with a whole bunch of awesome artists. All of our greeting cards will be available, as well as almost all of our art prints, with some con-only specials, too! (No ketubot, because they're enormous, hard to haul around, and I can't guarantee I would be able to fill one in at the Con; but if you're interested, come find me and talk to me!)

Wiscon runs through next Monday, so next week's blog post will go up on Tuesday instead with a post-con report.

Doodle: Your Friendly Officer Sea Lion

by Ariela

Have you ever found yourself in the unfortunate situation where you related an experience of oppression and no one asked you to corroborate your position with carefully vetted studies?

Have you perhaps expressed genuine anger while discussing repeated infringements on your boundaries and basic humanity, but none of your friends would step up to the plate and tell you to check that unbecoming behavior lest you wreck your argument?

Do you ever find yourself wishing that someone would pick up that slack?

Never fear! Everyone's favorite member of the friendly neighborhood Tone Police is here: Officer Sea Lion!

The Tone Police are one of the great peacekeeping* bodies of debates everywhere, and recent recruit Sea Lion is already distinguishing themself in the line of duty.

Tone Police Officer Sea Lion is a tireless interrogator, ready to ask the same question many times to catch their unwilling interlocuter in a misstep. And of course Officer Sea Lion will never hesitate to hold you to their standard of civil discourse.

*Where "peacekeeping" is defined as maintaining the status quo.

What ever would we do without the Tone Police and Officer Sea Lion? The world will probably never know.

</sarcasm>

Officer Sea Lion was inspired by watching K. Tempest Bradford deal with pushback on Twitter about her Cultural Appropriation Primer.

Officer Sea Lion is under the Creative Commons license, so please feel free to Share and Enjoy with attribution.

Dispelling two common myths about calligraphy

by Ariela

When I tell people I am a professional calligrapher, I get a lot of different responses, everything from "Wow!" to "That's a thing?" But two comments I hear the most are "I could never do that, my handwriting is terrible!" and "You must have a lot of patience." 

Today I would like to put these misconceptions out of their misery. Or at least try.

Misconception number one: you must have good handwriting to be a calligrapher

I can't speak for all calligraphers, but when I do calligraphy, I use a completely different process than when I am writing anything else. My equipment is different, the way I hold the pen is different, and the motions I make are entirely different. I have a sneaking suspicion that if my brain were scanned while I was writing a shopping list vs. calligraphing a text, different parts of my brain would light up.

My calligraphy is relentlessly regular. My actual handwriting is actually all over the map. When I am writing slowly it is reasonably neat, but when I write quickly it gets sloppy very quickly. Here is an example of something I jotted down for myself recently:

Yes, I scribbled the date and location of Troi and Riker's wedding on the back of an envelope.

Looks totally different than my calligraphic hands. (Honestly it looks like a combo of my parents handwriting.)

If you want to learn to do calligraphy, it doesn't matter what your handwriting looks like. You must be able to hold a pen for extended periods; hold your hand steady; draw a short, straight line; and draw a curve. If you can do that, you can learn calligraphy. Some people, for many good reasons, cannot do these things. And while this might also lead them to have less legible handwriting, poor handwriting is not the reason they wouldn't be able to do calligraphy. Correlation not being causality and all that jazz.

Misconception number two: you must be really patient to do calligraphy

I have a hard time not scoffing whenever I hear this one. I'm a very impatient person. Perhaps not more than the average person, but I can only see what goes on inside my own head. Really, I am not patient. What I am is tenacious, perfectionist, meticulous, and stubborn as all get-out. If all  you see is me sitting, making stroke after deliberate stroke with my pen, yeah, it might look like patience. But it's being fueled by something very different.

In one respect I suppose it is kind of true that you must be patient, in that calligraphy is not a craft that you can pick up quickly. I had been doing calligraphy as a hobby for seven years before I apprenticed to a professional. I went through 3 months of apprenticeship before I was even allowed to do the smallest bits of jobs for clients. I did small professional jobs for two years before I started doing bigger ones. Even now it takes a while to complete any one piece.

So yeah, I spend a lot of time perfecting my craft. But so does any artist. Or author. Or athlete. And probably lots of other professions starting with other letters. But I bet that Yo-Yo Ma, N.K. Jemisin, and Serena Williams don't get told "Wow, you must have so much patience" in response to their explanations of their careers, even before they became famous.

So just because you are an impatient person, don't think that you cannot do calligraphy. Sometimes it will be hard and boring, yes, but if you want it enough, it will be worth getting through that time to get to the reward at the end.