Well, not many news, but nevertheless news...
On Saturday two co-workers of Reesa and I helped Reesa and Eisfuchs moving to their new flat. It took us four tours with a Mercedes Sprinter, but we finished it quicker than I thought. A surprisingly well organized move. Unfortunately, they still don't seem to have DSL (contrary to what was promised by Deutsche Telekom.) Well, guess I'll hear the full story on Friday, when we drive to Kettwig for the last pawpet show rehearsal.
Completely unrelated, I just finished the book The magic of Shapeshifting by Rosalyn Greene. What a terrible book.
The writing is poor (very repetitive), the research even worse, lots of stuff, um, lets say: inspired by various other Internet Resources, discussions on alt.horror.werewolves or alt.lifestyle.furry, and other author's books (without understanding them), other stuff completely made-up and, very typically for New Age authors, Indian, Chinese, Native American and Central Asian philosophical and religious traditions mixed together, without any knowledge about the cultural, historical and religious background of these elements whatsoever. Likewise, she takes any lore about werewolves for real. A good laugh worth is her warning about resources on the Internet on the topic as it often is about cults... Pardon me, but we who discussed and wrote a lot of the stuff she's "refering" to in her book most often didn't take it as truth: we were collecting resources, compared them and most of us were very critical about it. Hardly the behaviour of a cult, isn't it? Ms. Greene, however, rips everything she got her fingers on out of context and claims it is for real. We were never so sure.
But what really pisses me off is that she presents her claims as truth without any discussion, without providing any evidence, left alone proof. You'll read a lot of "shifters have", "shifters are", "it is true", "it is common for shifters", and so on. She talks a lot about the shifters she has met or supposedly knows, even those who claimed to be able to physically turn into an animal, but she does not give any indication whether that people exist elswhere than in her own imagination. No hints on location, biography, personal background whatsoever. However, I have the suspicion that everything she tells us about these people was collected from Usenet postings (including those of trolls) she deliberately misquotes. I caught myself numerous times thinking "hey, I've read this before on Usenet, but in a completely different context." More often, however, I thought that I cannot stand reading this nonsense any further.
Ectoplasma. Sureee...
In somewhat related news: I've uploaded the story I've mentioned a couple of weeks before to lykanthrop.de. Yes, it has a werewolf in it, and it is an old fairy tale with a twist: The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Despite the English title it is written in German. By the way, does anyone know where the original fable comes from? Several English sources claim it is one of Aesop's Fables, but I cannot find any proof for that (Project Gutenberg does not know it at all) and it does not sound like one of those. I found a politically correct version in an online version of a childrens book called "The ABC of Aesop". I've read a German book several years ago where it was attributed to Grimms' collection of fairy tales, but again Project Gutenberg disagrees. And what is the German name of the story anyway?
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