This Is Literally My Favorite Ever. Best Post. Good.

I had to do a "home budget" project in econ during high school, and we had to "buy a car" as part of our budget planning and so I used a listing for one of these as my "purchase" because I am nothing if not a massive nerd. It still delights me to think about. ^__^

I'm desperately trying to look for the specific model of Lotus that you referenced in the first of the Young Wizard series. I've been wanting to draw a storyboard for a long while for it and for some reason Google is useless.

It's this one: the Lotus Turbo Esprit. Lovely, lovely thing that it was...

(Sorry, the YouTube video seems to have failed to insert correctly. But check it out:  https://youtu.be/CQnOusKNDKs)

...Later in the eighties they softened its lines down. But this is the one that made me stop and stare when I passed by the Lotus showroom in Manhattan in ‘81...

Weird Science on Twitter

“Entropy!”

Some of us, though, do tell them early. In the end it works out better… 

“I wonder how much trouble you get in for busting a worldgate.” // “How can I save her?”

A mix for Kit Rodriguez: Loyalty, Bravery, Empathy incarnate. He will cross time, space, and neighborhoods for those he loves and those he must protect.

 Titanium by David Guetta // Sugar, We’re Going Down by Fall Out Boy // The Cave by Mumford and Sons // Shut Up and Dance by Walk the Moon // Boys Are Back in Town by The Hitters // and ten others

Listen  (15 tracks, 55 mins)

NGC 4725, NGC 4747, and NGC 4712

Reasons the Young Wizards series is wonderful: there’s a scene that can be described as “Tiny kitten Roasts Satan” and it’s the best thing ever

I’ve got another question for you (sorry for asking so many questions about the young wizards series). The concepts of the Wizards Manual and the Speech. Let’s say, for instance, a wizard isn’t mathematically minded and has a natural bent towards poetry and literature, could the Speech take the form of poetry and could the Wizard’s manual be a mixture of modalities (pen and paper, laptop, and headphones)?

Well, this question has to be handled in two parts.

Can a wizard use something besides the Speech to do wizardry? No. There's only one language in which the Universe was built (though numerous recensions of that).

But that said: want to do spells in which the Speech is structured like poetry? Well, sure, why not? Poetry (when it's not free verse) is some of the most structured stuff there is: it'd work perfectly. (As long as you were really careful with the scansion...) And other forms of artistic structure could also work.

As regards the math end of things: you could make a case that both Nita's and Kit's Manuals (maybe more Nita's...) are mathematically- or scientifically-aligned because both their mindsets lean (or leaned) that way. But are there wizards constructing spells that look more like artwork than equations? Almost certainly. (There's at least one reference in Games Wizards Play to wizards dancing spells in the Speech rather than speaking it. Not to mention one of the wizards working with the event organizers for the Invitational, a graphic designer who was embedding the Speech into fonts...)

Secondary to all this: can the Manual be used in more than one modality? I don't see why not. The master project of "porting over" the Manual into more modern and easier-to-manage instrumentalities is first mentioned in The Book of Night with Moon—where Ehef, one of the feline wizards living and working at NYPL is a supervisor on the project. And this would almost certainly be a continuing effort, resulting in items like the WizPhone that Nita trialed at Kit's urging some while back. (And of course Spot, who started out with Dairine as a desktop and upgraded to a laptop along the way.) The attitude of the Powers that Be would certainly be that they want to make doing wizardry easier for qualified people, not harder. So, mix and match among modalities? Sure. (And at least you'd never have to worry about them staying in synch...) :)

...As for pen and paper: it's likely enough that the Speech was for many centuries in writing-centric cultures most routinely written longhand (after it broke out of cuneiform and hieroglyphics...). Probably there are even now wizards who prefer to do their spell structuring longhand—who knows, maybe even with fountain pens. (In fact, now I've managed to make myself suspicious about the work habits of a couple of people I know...) :)

Anyway: HTH!

I know you guys want me to draw different characters, but I love Nita so much :’)

[GWP said something about her wearing a floofy flowery dress so I had to] 

The full rotation of the Moon as seen by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

see, the thing about the young wizards series is

the thing about diane duane is

she infuses everything with so much life. she gives everything thoughts and feelings and personality. she makes you care about them, makes them matter. from grass chorusing “grow grow grow” to planets explaining how they show affection towards fellow celestial bodies by resonating

it’s beautiful, and it’s vital in the truest sense of the word. and I love it. it’s important on a level that I can’t even fully comprehend. it’s almost spiritual

I never thought of myself as a spiritual person, never felt moved by something larger than me. but the things I’ve read about in this series? the intention and compassion and wonder for all things

that’s something I can believe in