slug: about
lang: en
translates: about
title: About the author
description: Ah, you’ve made it! I’ve gone by many names over the years, but for our purposes, you can call me Xanthe Tynehorne. I’m a Dutch citizen by birth, but for many years now i’ve lived shunted up against Hadrian’s wall in green and pleasant England.
pageCreated: "2020-02-02"
pageUpdated: "2024-07-17"
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.subtitle Or: who does this guy think they are, anyway?
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p Ah, you’ve made it! I’ve gone by many names over the years, but for our purposes, you can call me #[strong Xanthe Tynehorne].#[+sn(1)] I’m a Dutch citizen by birth, but for many years now i’ve lived shunted up against Hadrian’s wall in green and pleasant England.
+sn(1)
p That’s not my “real” name outside the Forest, of course. It’s the internet — what did you expect?
p In meatspace, i enjoy having a good walk, exploring and learning about my local area, and trying (and failing) to pick up new skills. (One day i’ll find a good rhythm to practice my drawing regularly. One day.) On t’internet, i enjoy hanging out with friends, lurking around local fora, and, of course, tending to this humble forest.
+h2('Whence the Tynehornes?')
figure.full
img(src=qua("heritage_map_en.png"), alt="Hexham, Newcastle, and Ashington all lie in Northumberland, a county of England wedged right up north against the Scottish Border. In the Netherlands, Hoorn is to the north of Amsterdam; Utrecht is south of them both.")
figcaption A map of the undermentioned places, to help you get orientated. (Poland sold separately.)
figure.left
img(src=qua("hoorn.jpg"), alt="Two sailboats are parked in front of a row of quaint old Dutch buildings.")
figcaption The old port of Hoorn. #[a.cite(href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haven_van_Hoorn_foto_2.JPG") Alf van Beem]
p The paternal branch of my family hail from the proud seafaring city of #[a(href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoorn") Hoorn], in North Holland. In the sixties, it was designated by the government as an overflow town for those fleeing cramped and crowded Amsterdam#[+sn(2)] — think like the new towns of Britain, but building on a preëxisting urban core — and my family took up the offer, bringing with them their belongings, talents, and accents. (Via surnames one can also trace the family history back to the province of Utrecht, but records are flaky, and in any case i feel no particular attraction to some random lord’s estate.)
+sn(2)
p Hating the capital city is the ‘in’ thing to do in every country, but i’ve always been fond of Amsterdam — the whole place feels like a village that got carried away in its expansion. It’s fine, really, as long as you avoid the tourist traps!
p (Doesn’t hurt that all the politicians are concentrated in the Hague instead.)
p I’m told i’ve got a bit of Polish and Gypsy in me, via my oma and opa, as well as a distant kinship with the mononymous Dutch singer #[a(href="https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_(artiest)") Gordon].#[+sn(3)]
+sn(3)
p I’ve linked his #[em Dutch] wiki article here, because his En­glish one is almost entirely about that time he was racist on #[i The X Factor].
figure.right
img(src=qua("woodhorn.jpg"), alt="Winding gear at a disused mine juts up into the sky.")
figcaption Ashington’s disused Woodhorn colliery, now a museum. #[a.cite(href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/23448975@N04/2265723742") Draco2008]
p The maternal branch of my family, meanwhile, have lived in the industrial heart of North­umber­land for as long as anyone can remember; my grandfather was a coal miner before Thatcher shut it all down. My mum consciously affected an #[+sc('RP')] accent when raising me; nevertheless, Geordie words and Pitmaticisms have been clawing their way back to my tongue since secondary school.
p That side of my family also count a fair few Jehovah’s Witnesses amongst their ranks. My mum, thank goodness, got out when she came of age; she and papa raised me fiercely secular. (This is foreshadowing.)
+h2('Gender, or, why i enlisted in Tiresias’ army')
p Ah, that perpetual bugbear of history. The long and short of it is that i don’t particularly consider myself either male or female — i rather like to think that i combine the best aspects of both.
p English is surprisingly skint on good words to describe the bimodal valley between mounts male and female, but gun to my head, if you asked me to pick one to describe myself, i’d call myself a #[a.theonym(href="/shrines/hermaphroditos") Hermaphrodite], imperfect a term as it may be. I aspire less to the scrawny, trim-haired youngster who tries to look like neither sex, which has become the popular stereotype of non-binary#[+sn(4)] people, and would much rather present myself as the complete opposite: a buxom, bearded she-bear who looks like some (botanically) perfect fusion of both.
+sn(4)
p No, really — why is all the language for those of us who sit between the two extremes of gender so #[em clinical]? “Non-binary”? What am i here, a robot or something?
p As far as #[i *hushed whispers*] “The Surgery”®™ is concerned, there have been significant advances in recent years that let someone have #[a(href="https://www.alignsurgical.com/non-binary/phallus-preserving-vaginoplasty/") both sets of] #[a(href="https://www.alignsurgical.com/non-binary/vagina-preserving-phalloplasty/") down-there bits]. It’s a far cry from true #[span.theonym Hermaphroditism] yet, and i probably wouldn’t want to take them in their current state, but who knows, maybe twenty or so years #[a(href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uterus_transplantation#Sweden") down the line]…
figure.full
img(src=qua('matrix.png'), alt="An xkcd comic, riffing on ‘The Matrix’. In the first panel, Morpheus hands Neo the red pill and blue pill, saying ‘…or you take the red pill, and i show you how deep the rabbit hole goes’. In the remaining panels, Neo crushes up the pills and snorts them.")
figcaption In short: #[a(href="https://xkcd.com/566/") this #[i: +sc('XKCD')] comic] is me, but the red pill is œstrogen and the blue pill is testosterone.
+h2('Faith (and other beliefs)')
figure.left
img(src=qua('vindolanda.jpg'), alt="The crumbling ruins of a Roman bathhouse.")
figcaption The remains of the Roman fort at Vindolanda, near Hexham. #[a.cite(href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vindolanda_bathhouse_-_2007-05-19.jpg") Voice of Clam]
p I am a Pagan, holding faith in the Gods of old — particularly i worship the deities of the classical world, historically praised all the way from Britain to Bactria. As mentioned, i was raised an atheist, but as i grew older, i had a sneaking suspicion that there had to be something up there (or down there, as the case may be). I found the answers provided by the major monotheistic faiths unsatisfying, but when i looked into polytheism, something in my head just clicked — it all made sense.
p There’s no reason for me to bore you to death with my political beliefs. Suffice it to say that i think humans are, generally, nice, that people should be free to do whatever they ruddy well like so long as it isn’t hurting anyone, and that stubborn misanthropy and hatred should be stamped out wherever they rear their ugly head.
p #[strong → See also:] #[a(href="/belief") What i believe], #[a(href="/shrines") The Forest of Shrines]
+h2("About the site")
figure.right
img(src=qua('xp.jpg'), alt="A computer from 2007 running Windows XP.")
figcaption My first experiences on the internet were on a computer not too unlike this, running Windows #[+sc('XP')]. #[a.cite(href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/61132483@N00/485390223") © Les Chatfield]
p I’m young enough that i’ve never known of a time without the internet. My dad was a big-shot network engineer; my mum used #[+sc('IRC')] chats and #[+sc('BBS')]es to escape her restrictive household — it was almost a given that they would give me near-unfettered internet access from far too young an age. It’s long lost now, but on that early edition of Internet Explorer, they’d set up for me a list of curated bookmarks; endless rabbit holes of twisty little passages and personal sites tailored to just my interests. That was where my love story with the world wide web began.
p Many years later, in 2017, i started toying around on the free web host #[a(href="https://neocities.org/") Neocities], eager to find respite from the venom and vitriol of social media. The site lay dormant for years — and then, in the spring of 2020, #[a(href="https://youtu.be/1Rx_p3NW7gQ?t=130") the funniest thing happened]…
p Stuck indoors with sod all else to do, where others baked sourdough, i tended to my website. Four years and countless redesigns, relocations, and renamings later, #[i The Satyrs’ Forest], now hosted on a beat-up old laptop in an office drawer, is still kicking — so let’s hope it stays that way, aye?
p The biggest inspirations for this site in the beginning were doubtless those of the conlangers #[a(href="https://dedalvs.com/") David J. Peterson] and #[a(href="http://steen.free.fr/") Jan van Steenbergen], the latter even a fellow Horinees.#[+sn(5)] Though they may not know it, i am forever indebted to them for passing me the flame of inspiration to make silly little websites on the internetz.
+sn(5)
p Someone from Hoorn.
+h2('The fun part')
ul
li #[strong Favourite albums:] My top five would probably consist of the following — nothing older than the eighties, because i’m a cultureless heathen.
ol
li The 1975’s preposterously-titled sophomore album #[i I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it] was the album that got me into music, but for my money, their best and most distilled work is 2022’s #[a(href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG9v66LUA5g"): i Being Funny in a Foreign Language].
li What more is there to say about Radiohead’s #[a(href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FapBH3j6WoA"): i OK Computer] that hasn’t already been said a thousand times?
li #[+sc('XTC')]’s odd little Beatlesque Pagan baroque-pop album #[a(href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F4d4DtGZhw"): i Apple Venus Volume One] isn’t on streaming, but you really must give it a listen if you can track it down.
li Sigur Rós’ #[a(href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fEUUnXDnbk", lang="is"): i Ágætis byrjun] is pure emotional magic, even without a comprehensible word in sight.
li Kate Bush’s #[a(href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp43OdtAAkM"): i Hounds of Love] is a masterclass in the art of pop.
li #[strong Favourite songs:] In no particular order…
ul
li Ride’s #[a(href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcyfPXF770U") “Leave Them All Behind”] is so transcendently fucking good that i almost put it on the albums list. It is eight minutes straight of rapturous bliss given musical form.
li Radiohead’s #[a(href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ju8xO_Zvfo") “Motion Picture Soundtrack”] makes me blubber like a baby every time i hear it.
li Talking Heads’ #[a(href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoiX8ncN8-k") “This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody)”] is the greatest love song ever written.
li The 1975’s #[a(href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSnAllHtG70") “The Sound”] is the best pop song of the century and i will fight you on that.
li #[strong → See also:] #[a(href="/music") The Panpipes]
li #[strong Favourite films:] My “10 out of 10 films”, in rough order of preference:
ol
li #[i Synecdoche, New York]
li #[i Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind]
li #[i Back to the Future]
li #[i The Truman Show]
li #[i Gremlins 2: The New Batch]
li(style="list-style-type: circle") #[strong → See also:] #[a(href="/films") My favourite films]
li #[strong Favourite #[+sc('TV')] show:] #[i Severance] is brilliant, on the condition that they don’t mess up the next seasons. Fingers crossed!
li #[strong Favourite video game:] #[i Minecraft] isn’t a video game. #[a(href="/christmas") It’s a way of life.]
li #[strong Favourite colour:] Purple. 💜
li #[strong Favourite planet:] #[span.theonym Earth], of course. It’s the only one with any variety in the scenery, and i couldn’t live without it. #[span.theonym Pluto] is a close second; i think the #[+sc('IAU')] have treated it unfairly, and the fact that it has a heart on it is just so endearing!#[+sn(6)]
li #[strong Favourite animal:] #[a(href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJoCulItdxg") Otters.]
li #[strong Favourite languages:] In no particular order: Catalan, English, ancient Greek, Icelandic, and Irish.
li #[strong If you could have any superpower, what would it be?] Shapeshifting, shapeshifting, #[em shapeshifting]! I realise it’s somewhat of a stereotypical answer for transgendered folk, but ignoring that, no other superpower except maybe teleportation#[+sn(7)] lets you see so much of the human (and non-human) experience. Screw being a man for a day, why not infiltrate an #[+sc('MI')]5 meeting? Run with the wolves? Grow some antlers or an extra pair of arms? The possibilities are limitless, and i’ve hardly scratched the surface, but let’s keep this site rated 15, shall we?
p #[strong → See also:] #[a(href="/proust") Xanthe does Proust’s questionnaire]
+sn(6)
p The full, objective ranking:
ol
li #[span.theonym Earth]
li #[span.theonym Pluto]
li #[span.theonym Neptune] (Radiates alluring and mystical vibes. I continue to believe it’s the deep blue Big Science wants you to think it isn’t.)
li #[span.theonym Saturn] (A cliché choice, yes, but those rings really are as excellent as they say they are.)
li #[span.theonym Uranus] (It’s pronounced oo-#[em rah]-nuss.)
li #[span.theonym Venus] (Shame about the clouds, but #[em extremely] metal how it keeps crushing all the landers we send to death.)
li #[span.theonym Jupiter] (Meh.)
li #[span.theonym Mars] (Overrated.)
li #[span.theonym Mercury] (A boring, gray, freezing/burning rock. No disrespect to #[a(href="/shrines/hermes") the real #[span.theonym Mercury]], of course!)
p Due to the small size and lack of imagery of many of the dwarf planets, i cannot in good conscience rank them on the list.
+sn(7)
p Teleportation advocates love to point out the vast decrease in travel time… it’s not about the destination, dears, it’s about the journey! Sure, you could just #[em teleport] to the top of Mount Everest… or you could climb it your damn self and have some fun for once in your life.
p Also, shapeshifting doesn’t violate the laws of physics #[em as] brazenly, as long as you keep yourself at about the same mass or less. No speed-of-light tomfoolery here!
+h2('Contact the webmixter', 'contact')
p If you want to get in touch, please send an email to #[strong webmixter #[i at] satyrs #[i dot] ee yew]. I don’t check my inbox too often, but unless you’re an arsehole or a spambot, i’ll try to respond, promise!