Pat and Dan offer advice on building muscle with kettlebells and whether video gaming can be productively incorporated into a generalist lifestyle.
Dan John on Building Muscle with Kettlebells,
the Value of Video Gaming, and More
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Show Notes
Here’s the extract from The Sword and the Stone that Dan mentioned:
“Come, sword,” he said. “I must cry your mercy and take you for a better cause.
“This is extraordinary,” said the Wart. “I feel strange when I have hold of this sword, and I notice everything much more clearly. Look at the beautiful gargoyles of the church, and of the monastery which it belongs to. See how splendidly all the famous banners in the aisle are waving. How nobly that yew holds up the red flakes of its timbers to worship God. How clean the snow is.
I can smell something like fetherfew and sweet briar-and is it music that I hear?”
It was music, whether of pan-pipes or of recorders, and the light in the churchyard was so clear, without being dazzling, that one could have picked a pin out twenty yards away.
“There is something in this place,” said the Wart. “There are people. Oh, people, what do you want?”
Nobody answered him, but the music was loud and the light beautiful.
“People,” cried the Wart, “I must take this sword. It is not for me, but for Kay. I will bring it back.”
There was still no answer, and Wart turned back to the anvil. He saw the golden letters, which he did not read, and the jewels on the pommel, flashing in the lovely light.
“Come, sword,” said the Wart.
He took hold of the handles with both hands, and strained against the stone. There was a melodious consort on the recorders, but nothing moved.
The Wart let go of the handles, when they were beginning to bite into the palms of his hands, and stepped back, seeing stars.
“It is well fixed,” he said.
He took hold of it again and pulled with all his might. The music played more strongly, and the light all about the churchyard glowed like amethysts; but the sword still stuck.
“Oh, Merlyn,” cried the Wart, “help me to get this weapon.”
There was a kind of rushing noise, and a long chord played along with it. All round the churchyard there were hundreds of old friends. They rose over the church wall all together, like the
Punch and Judy ghosts of remembered days, and there were badgers and nightingales and vulgar crows and hares and wild geese and falcons and fishes and dogs and dainty unicorns and solitary wasps and corkindrills and hedgehogs and griffins and the thousand other animals he had met. They loomed round the church wall, the lovers and helpers of the Wart, and they all spoke solemnly in turn. Some of them had come from the banners in the church, where they were painted in heraldry, some from the waters and the sky and the fields about-but all, down to the smallest shrew mouse, had come to help on account of love. Wart felt his power grow.
“Remember my biceps,” said the Oak, “which can stretch out horizontally against Gravity, when all the other trees go up or down.”
“Put your back into it,” said a Luce (or pike) off one of the heraldic banners, “as you once did when I was going to snap you up. Remember that power springs from the nape of the neck.”
“What about those forearms,” asked a Badger gravely, “that are held together by a chest? Come along, my dear embryo, and find your tool.”
A Merlin sitting at the top of the yew tree cried out, “Now then, Captain Wart, what is the first law of the foot? I thought I once heard something about never letting go ?”
“Don’t work like a stalling woodpecker,” urged a Tawny Owl affectionately. “Keep up a steady effort, my duck, and you will have it yet.”
“Cohere,” said a Stone in the church wall.
A Snake, slipping easily along the coping which bounded the holy earth, said, “Now then, Wart, if you were once able to walk with three hundred ribs at once, surely you can co-ordinate a few little muscles here and there? Make everything work together, as you have been learning to do ever since God let the amphibian crawl out of the sea. Fold your powers together, with the spirit of your mind, and it will come out like butter. Come along, homo sapiens, for we humble friends of yours are waiting here to cheer.”
The Wart walked up to the great sword for the third time. He put out his right hand softly and drew it out as gently as from a scabbard.
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