Answer: I write about a variety of topics that happen to interest me. Some of them are fiction or satire or poetry. There are several book reviews. Some items are short recollections or opinion pieces. And there are a few items about matters that I have researched. Although some topics are connected to Xnty, I don't intend Lunar Skeletons to be any sort of "blog ministry". I just happen to enjoy writing. Whether anyone would want to read what I write is another matter.
Question: Can I reproduce your entire blog post on my site?
Answer: No. I would prefer no more than an excerpt of a few sentences you found to be the most important in the article. Please attribute the source and include a link back to my post. Reposting an entire article is a form of copyright infringement.
Question: Is this blog entirely kaput?
Answer: No, it is more like semi-inactive. I just don't feel it necessary to write something every day, and therefore I operate on a very leisurely schedule. I'll post something when I think it is worth saying.
Question: Your blog archive once had about 500 entries or more but now many of them are gone. Why is that?
Answer: I culled my archive for a variety or combination of reasons. Here are just some of them. Entries were deleted because:
- The writing was lousy in my opinion.
- The article was too trivial to bother keeping.
- There was something in the article I no longer agreed with but I was too lazy to redact or rewrite the article. (Yes, I can change my mind about things.)
- The article might have contained information from sources I later found to be unreliable.
- The article contained satire of a sort that is liable to be misunderstood as to my actual intent.
- The article was tiresome or boring to read.
- The article concerned a subject I no longer view as worth talking about.
Question: Is "Oengus Moonbones" your real name?
Answer: No, it isn't. It's what's called a "nom de plume" or "pen name." Believe me, my real name is very boring, which is why I don't use it. Famous authors sometimes go by pen names, the best example being the American humorist Mark Twain. I hope that my clever nom de plume will make me equally as famous. Now I derived my first name from an obscure, 9th Century Irish saint named "Óengus of Tallaght," sometimes known as Oengus the Hagiographer. The last name "Moonbones" is my own invention, because it sounded Celtic or mysterious to me. Later did I find out that years ago there might have been an Australian rock band that also had the name "Moonbones." More recently, I have tended to drop the "Moonbones" and go by the simpler "Oengus."
Question: Is the guy in the picture really you?
Answer: No, but if my beard were a little longer, the depiction would look very much like me. The picture was cropped from an 1877 painting by Henryk Siemiradzki entitled "Nero's Torches."
Question: Does "Christianus Incendiator Urbis" mean anything?
Answer: It's part of the longer accusation "Christianus, Incendiator Urbis, Gentis Humanae Hostis" written in Latin and which was hung beneath the guy in the picture. Translated into English, it roughly means "Christian, city arsonist, an enemy of the human race". This was what emperor Nero accused the xtians of being before having them executed in various grisly ways. Go find the painting and you'll understand what I mean. I find it very amusing that some "discernment bloggers" get really freaked out when they see something written in Latin. This has happened, which is why I added this explanation.
Question: Do any of the labels have special meaning?
Answer: Most of the labels are for a general categorizing of blog posts; however, one in particular does has a special meaning. Now in the majority of cases, most readers will be perceptive enough to realize when something is meant to be fictional. But I cannot count on all readers being equally perceptive, and there were a few blog entries where a misunderstanding might occur, especially when I am writing in a style emulating factual reportage. To avoid any confusion, these are marked with the label "fable". But in the majority of cases, this label is unnecessary because the reader would have to be a helpless blockhead not to realize what my intent was.