Two Pulls and a Pass

As expected, school has gobbled up all my free time and a large portion of my brain. However, I feel that I owe you, my random reader, something a little more then the recent blankness I've left here. To that end I give you three separate books reviews, one of which is actually a text I've been reading for school.

Who Murdered Chaucer? A Medieval Mystery is a really interesting book with several authors. This fairly weighty book was written by Terry Jones, Robert Yeager, Terry Dolan, Alan Fletcher, and Juliette Dor. While having that many different authors can make for a book that jumps around a little in literary style, whoever the editor was did an excellent job on smoothing most of the rough edges off.

To quote from the book jacket "...Chaucer was celebrated as his country's finest living poet, rhetorician and scholar:the pre-eminent intellectual superstar of his time. We have a great deal of information about his life. And yet nothing at all is known of his death." The book goes on to advance the theory that perhaps Chaucer was murdered, or if he himself wasn't killed, perhaps his reputation was. The lack of information about his death and about his manuscripts (or lack thereof) is explored and discussed very throughly. Chaucer's political and religious run-ins with Archbishop Thomas Arundel and other notable figures of the period and his dodging of heresy charges due to his development of the English language as a respected means of communication are covered in depth.

While the book and its dedicated authors never really answer their own question of 'How did Chaucer die?' they have put forth a huge amount of effort to give the reader as much information about the time, place, and players as they can. This book is an excellent read for history majors, fans of mysteries, and other inquisitive sorts. Be warned that there is no solid ending though so if that frustrates you, skip it.

The End of Days: A Story of Tolerance, Tyranny, And The Expulsion Of The Jews From Spain by Erna Paris is also a very good book, although not in the same style at all. One of the more frustrating things for me in my field of study is that I was born and raised in a former colony of England. That makes it very hard to find good books, in English, written about Spain. Most of my contemporaries know about conquistadors and Columbus, but not much else about the exceptional history of Spain. That's one of the reasons I prize this book aside from the copious end-of-chapter notes.

"Celts, Romans, Visigoths, and Moors;pagans, Christians, Jews and Muslims. It was a rich, multicultural stew that bubbled and simmered over the Iberian Peninsula for more then a thousand years producing a unique, pluralistic society...That Spain was, for centuries, the most tolerant nation in Europe, and subsequently became the most zealously intolerant, is the heart of this book." Ms. Paris uses written records of the time and lots of research to reveal how people in Spain at one point lived side by side in relative friendliness until the combined pressure of changing politics and religion pushed them to a breaking point. She points out the similarities between the circumstances in Spain at the time, late 19th and early 20th century France and Germany, and many of the current issues facing the world now. I firmly believe that those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it badly and this book in its final chapters points out some fairly scary parallels in the fight of Church vs. State that the Spanish Crown then and the current governments of the world face now.

I strongly recommend this book to people with a little time to chew it over. It does use many excerpts from period sources, although thankfully they've all been modernized in spelling and punctuation to make an easier read. If you're interested in how people failed at segregation in the past, this book will have you fully engaged. It's not a casual read, but it's worth it.

Now for the book I can not recommend to anyone although I have been forced by my history professor to read it. The Stripping of The Altars by Eamon Duffy starts out with a really interesting hypothesis, and totally fails to back it up in a way anyone could stand to read.He states firmly his “conviction that the Reformation as actually experienced by ordinary people was not an uncomplicated imaginative liberation...but...a great cultural hiatus, which dug a ditch...between the English people and their past.”[xiv, Duffy]. He is of the opinion that the Protestant Reformation was not an anticipated event, looked for by reformers and people all over Europe, but rather something sort of awful that ruined a way of life forever and prevents us from ever knowing what it was like beforehand. While it is true that many great things were lost, the sheer number of examples that Mr. Duffy can provide us proves that it's clearly not gone forever.

He goes on,and on, and on some more, for 593 pages. Most of them are filled with lists of things that actually survived The Reformation and the some of which even survived the Puritan Interregnum of the English Civil War. He talks about the medieval Catholic Church in England and its centrality to every day life. However, his insistence that The Protestant Reformation wasn't welcomed or wanted practically anywhere outside of Court rings false as does his repeated statements that all of the 'traditional' religion was lost forever by force. I've stated before that I don't care for massive lists in books, but this one really does feel like the author is trying to salvage a weak argument by throwing up smoke-screens of stuff.

I think that while many things changed in England and the world, they weren't all lost. Some of them, like pictures of Mary holding the baby Jesus, became a symbol used only during parts of the year. Others are issues kept alive by vigorous debate and questioning even now, like Transubstitution and Purgatory. The painted saints images and stained glass are gone and are a great loss to the history of England, but I maintain that the sheer amount of evidence that Duffy was able to find to write his book counteracts his claim of “a great cultural hiatus”. In short, pass on this book unless you're really having trouble sleeping. It's become my favorite non-prescription sleep aid this semester and I look forward to the end of year so I can finally quit reading it.

Who Murdered Chaucer? A Medieval Mystery, Dolan, Terry; Dor, Juliette; Fletcher, Alan; Jones, Terry;Yeager, Robert

2003 St. Martins Press, New York, NY

ISBN 0-312-33587-3

The End of Days: A Story of Tolerance, Tyranny, And The Expulsion Of The Jews From Spain , Paris, Erna

1995 Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY

ISBN 1-57392-017-7

The Stripping of The Altars , Duffy, Eamon

1992, Yale University

ISBN 978-0-300-10828-6

Free stuff

So there are plenty of people who like to complain about modern college tuitions and they are often correct. A student does pay a very large amount for the privilege of being abused at random hours until the brain tries to leak out the ears. However, I have discovered several things that you can get for free on a college campus.

• Post-consumer use recycled toilet paper pens, light beige in color. Sadly, I was offered these by a hippie who popped out of a recycle bin and pushed them in my face. Since I nearly broke his nose, I felt it polite to turn him down.
• Entertainment. It's completely possible to turn my Brit Lit class into a drinking game. The teacher often repeats herself so often, using the same phrases over and over. "Welcome to [insert modern science here]!" or "Anglo-Saxons like violence!" or "America is just the second British Empire." Sadly the class is at 8am so I'll have to use M&M's instead of shots of vanilla rum.
• Feelings of superiority. The squirrels on campus are not afraid of anything at all. They will stand right there and steal the food right from your hand. However, since the freshmen are scared of everything, including the squirrels, I still can feel good about myself.
• Gideons Bibles. But only the English ones with the green cover. All the others have to be special ordered.
• Inspiration. Every time I've had to write a really complicated paper or work a freakishly long biology set, I feel extra creative and go off to make some new project in the craft room.
• Aluminium water bottles. There's a bounty out on plastic water bottles and if you bring in so many of them, they give you a nifty metal one in exchange. This leads to people buying all the water out of the machines in order to turn in the plastics. Rather suspect if you ask me.
• Free school t-shirts. You have to trade in a shirt from another school or possibly 5 cans of food for the food bank, so that's not really free I suppose.

I finished the hat and I liked it so much I made a doublet to go with it. As soon as I locate the camera I'll get you pictures. They're both late period Elizabethan with the doublet pattern mostly out of Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion. Since I haven't gotten any trim on it yet, it's a very respectable middle class doublet with pretensions.

I've also managed to finish a lovely bright blue merino wool hat that deserves pictures and praise. I got the pattern off of Ravelry and it knit up in a snap. I think I'm going to be forced to make the matching scarf too, just because it's so pretty. It has a tiny little faux cable on the head band and a lovely soft moss stitch for the top. The royal blue merino was a gift for my birthday from the lady who taught me to knit and I've been hoarding it until I found the perfect project for it. I may just sell the extra long blue and white one I made a few years ago.

I'm holding steady in the high B-low A range of grades at school. If this keeps up I will hopefully manage to keep bringing the GPA back up which will make me very giddy. After this semester I'll have nothing but French, History and Theater classes to do. I'm very excited about that since it'll be the first time I've ever only had classes I wanted to take. Mind you, Theater 101 is going to be a drag again, but I figure I can only push the GPA up, up, up!

Now I'll go back to watching Kathrine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy goofy old movies. They have the best sparks.

Hiding from the STUFF!

I'm back in school now, working away at a 5-day-a-week, 8 to noon schedule at the school. I leave the house at 6:30a and get home around 1 or 2p and I often take a nap in the afternoon before I jump on the homework. Of the four classes I'm taking, only French is bothering me at this point. Pretty normal class load, aside from the driving.

Sadly, I've discovered a new and disturbing trend in myself. When I'm worn out from a hard day of school and dodging crazy people on the highway it's really hard to concentrate on getting my projects done. Yes, that is projects with an 's'. Let me take you on a small tour of my distractions.

First up, the Elizabethan tall hat!

This little beauty is supposed to be done in time for the final dress rehearsal of this fall's Baron's Men show. That will be Tuesday of next week. I've had the parts all cut out and waiting to be assembled for over a month now. Should it ever get finished, it will be covered in a lovely gold brocade and lined in a shockingly bright royal blue silk. I have no idea when that might be.

Next up, the experimental fuzzy purple armwarmers:

I've got a friend who works in an office filled with computers all day. She gets cold very easily and asked me to make her some arm warmers. I agreed then figured out that I didn't have the right measurements for the set. While I was chewing over the patterns available, my daughter leaned over my shoulder and demanded a set for herself. Since she's here, I can use her to figure out exactly which measurements I'll need from my friend who happens to live a few states away. These might actually be done sometime this year if I can quit messing up the math and just settle in for good long knit.

Then we have the Blue Stripey Sock:

This poor sock has been in the process for over a year. I pick it up, do a few rounds, put it down and then misplace it. Currently the sock is living in my backpack and I'm using it to distract and annoy my morning lecturer. It's ok, the feeling is mutual.

I've also got the Stalled Beading/Embroidery Project:

This picture doesn't have the tiny gold glass beads in it and all the colors seem a little pinker then in real life. The bodice is for my daughter and it's a very rich garnet colored velvet. I'm trying to find a pretty, late period, slightly Spanish-looking pattern that I can put on it but I haven't made up my mind yet. This needs to be done before Candlemas (first weekend of Feb. ) next year. It might happen.

Right this second, I've got a Cooking Experiment going on:

This slightly scatological looking set-up is my test batch of beef jerky. I'm experimenting with different spices, wines, and cuts of meat to see what will work best. While I expect this will be done inside of an hour, I'm going to have to arm myself and stand watch over it, since the family is sniffing around like late-winter bears.

Now why am I doing all of this right now? It's avoidance actually. By taking on multiple projects, many of which have a finite deadline, I'm avoiding both my homework ( just kidding Madame Jackson!), and I've avoiding having to try and put this:

The pile in the library, into this:





Which is a very small craft room. I've been working at getting rid of things in there for months now and it's much smaller then it used to be, but it's not done yet.

In between all this, I'm still broadcasting every Thursday night on the CAPE Radio, working on the Board of Directors for The Baron's Men, working with the local Red Cross to help flood victims, talking to schools for the Education Committee, and attempting to be a wife and mother. I have a theory I'll meet myself going down the stairs one of these days and that'll be the end of me. In the meantime though, it's kind of nice to be busy again.

Big Girl School

Once upon a time I had a plan. I was going to work hard on my language skills and go to school at the American University in Paris. I was going to major in International Business and come back to the States to work at the U.N. as an interpreter. Eventually, I'd get picked up by a multi-national corporation and spend my time jet-setting around the world. I'd live out of hotel rooms and a suitcase and never have to worry about mowing my own lawn.

So much for dreams.

Instead I had a baby and just managed to graduate, escaping from my parents house as soon as I possibly could. My first husband was unemployed, abusive and unfaithful, quickly pushing me to divorce. My second husband, while certainly a much better human being, had trouble keeping a job for very long and I found myself needing to work to support us and the baby. There never really was time to do much more then survive.

Eventually, the baby went to school and the husband got a better job. After serious consideration, I started back to school at the local community college. I'd go for a semester, then quit because of lack of money. A short-term job later and I'd go back, still trying to figure out what I was going to do when I grew up. I found out that in spite of my fondness for it, I wasn't very good at learning languages, so the interpretor thing wasn't going to work out.

Over time, thanks to an understanding husband and the ability to go to school on my lunch break, I managed to get two full years (and a little extra) of college at the small-time community college. I was given the choice and transferred to a state university nearby in order to finish up a Bachelor's degree in History with a minor in Theater. I've got several of the history-specific course already done thanks to the years of not knowing what I wanted to do and I'm going to attempt to talk the dean of the theater department into giving me credit for all the work I've already done. Being on the Board of Directors for a non-profit theater troupe will come in handy for that.

Tomorrow, I go to a real university for the first time as a student. I'm not sure I can explain how excited I am. I have always craved more knowledge, seeking out books and teachers on my own for topics that interest me. I get to start my morning with British Lit and then indulge in a History of Tudor and Stuart Britain. Yum! I've also got yet another round of French in the hope that something will stick this time, and some Biology which I have no opinion on as yet. I've taken bio from some very good teachers and done well, some very bad ones and done poorly. I hope this is one of the good ones. I'm going to work as hard as I can to make sure this semester is as perfect as possible.

While I'm not looking forward to getting up at 5:45am for my hour long bus ride every morning, I'm excited about everything else. I hope I'll have some wonderful new books to talk to you about soon.

Dust Buffalo

Please excuse the lack of update, I've been directing a stampede.

You see, I have a 15 year old daughter who craves variety. She decided she wanted a change of view and asked if she could swap my craft room for her bedroom. After thinking about it some, I really didn't see why not and agreed. After all, I'm a military brat. I'm used to packing up and moving fairly often and I wanted a change of view as well so this was a cheaper way to do it.

I may have grown up always on the move but I forgot that we've lived in this same house for 10 years. 10 whole years! In one place! I've always suspected that it wasn't actually possible but the time does slip away quickly. The corollary to time passes is stuff collects and I had forgotten that important detail.

So far I've pulled 9 bags of trash out of the craft room in 2 days. I've stepped on various assorted buttons, calligraphy pens, straight pins, and odd metal doo-dads that I have no name for. I have located a giant pile of half-done craft projects ranging from paper mache to leather work to blackwork to lacemaking. I'd forgotten about the tapestry loom and I really don't remember buying that green lace or why I'd need such a thing. The bobbin lace project is hopelessly snarled and there are multiple loose patterns running around.

Many of my friends believe in the concept of keeping a bunch of materials in stock in their craft rooms. The idea is that if they have a craving to build a hat at 3am then they have all the stuff on hand and can be hatting until breakfast or they feel better, whichever comes first. I'm starting to think that for a person with hoarder-like tendencies that might not be the best idea however. I just keep picking up craft things on sale and tossing them in the room with the idea that "I'll use this sometime". The right project for that particular item never comes up though and it just gathers dust in the room. Eventually there's more wrong stuff in the room then room and I have to do my crafting elsewhere.

I come by these tendencies genetically if not honestly. My mother has always had a very bad habit of collecting more stuff in the house then she needs. Every 6 months or so she has a huge garage sale and wastes massive amounts of time and energy to make about $50. She labels everything, has a cash box, puts out ads and signs, and makes about enough money to pay for the sale. My sister hasn't ever managed to get to the actual yard sale itself. She almost lost custody of her children because she had too much stuff in her house. The memory of that tiny apartment crammed literally to the ceiling with junk still gives me nightmares. I know this could be a problem, but it's hard to remember to fight back against it.

So, I'm going to toss out lots of old junk. I'm going to go through what's left and have a crafting and book sale. I'm going to invite my crafting friends on purpose since I figure that would be the audience who wants this stuff and I'll make sure to give people plenty of lead time before-hand to save. I'll even take checks. And at the end of the day I will drive all the leftovers to Salvation Army and leave them there, because I value my sanity more then I value two hand-spans of black stretch velvet.

For now I will go back and keep cleaning the room. I've got to get the closet, spinning wheel, and antique table out, plus dig through the piles of costumes stored in there. I also need to remove the herd of dust buffalo and set them free outside to wander around and disturb the neighbors. Break out the carpet rakes!

Misfortunes will happen...

...to the best and wisest of men [Pawnee Proverb]

Every now and then you run across a book series that makes you want to go right out and buy all the other books in that series. Some times you want to go out and buy everything else that author has ever written. When I first ran across Terry Pratchett's Discworld series I fell in love. I adored the characters, I dug the dry jokes, and I was endlessly amused by the footnotes. Like Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett is one of those tasty mental treats that comes out of England and it shows in his writing style.

For the few innocents who have no idea what I'm talking about with Discworld, I have taken the liberty of linking you to Mr. Pratchett's official website. As far as I can tell he has written a set of books where the only consistent character is the world itself. Inside the main series, he has written several mini-series' that keep the focus on one particular part of this very unusual world and set of people. Most fans tend to prefer one set of characters over another, but you really have to try them all on for size.

The newest mini-series in the Discworld universe that I've started is based around a guy with the pleasant name of Moist von Lipwig. Aside from his name, Moist is also unlucky enough to be a very good confidence man who has just been caught and is on his way to hung by the neck until dead. Removed at just past the last moment from the gallows by the ruler of the city, Lord Vetinari, Moist is given the job of resuscitating the local Post Office. He manages to pull this off with a huge bag of tricks, some left-over loot, and the help of a bunch of giant clay golems. He is ably assisted by a girlfriend nicknamed Spike, a strange cross between a Postal Workers Union and a Masonic Lodge, and the tendency of his own mouth to run away with him. Moist has to fend off a hostile semaphore monopoly trying to shut him down while still clearing out decades of undelivered mail from the Post Office building itself.The fact that he not only does it, but does it while telling people to their faces that he's a fraud makes Going Postal a really fun book to read.

When the next book in the set came up, I was very anxious to read it. In Making Money we find out that Moist is getting sort of twitchy. He's been a good honest citizen for awhile now and it's starting to wear on him. When Lord Veninari offers him a job in charge of the Royal Mint and Royal Bank he's not really eager to jump in. However, he inherits the position of Bank Manager and gets into the swing of things. And that's when this book started to fall apart for me. You see, in Going Postal, there's a certain amount of frantic mental flapping, some twists and a few surprise loop-de-loops that make a reader want to stand up and cheer. But in Making Money the same flapping occurs. There's the same kind of plot twists and you can see the loop a mile away. Even though our hero has been put into a remarkable similar position to last time, he pretty much the same things over again. The shenanigans are terribly predictable. I kept reading to see if there were some new ones, but I was disappointed.

Am I saying if you read one, don't read the other? NO!! What I saw as a predictable plot point came totally out of left field for a few of the other people I know who read Discworld. I'm a real pain in the butt when it comes to guessing the murderer during the first 15 min. of the film and figuring out my birthday presents too, so please don't go on only my experience. However, if you're just getting into Discworld, save one of them to be read after you've looked at a few other things. I find that I like Making Money quite a bit more if I don't read Going Postal just before hand. Try Small Gods or Equal Rites or any of the other equally wonderful books.

I do hope you pick up and read some Terry Pratchett this summer. He writes excellent books to take on trips unless, like me, you're the sort who likes to snicker and snort out loud at your reading material. In that case save it for someplace private, because you will be laughing a lot at these books.

Pratchett, Terry. Going Postal

HarperTorch, New York, 2004

Pratchett, Terry. Making Money

Harper, New York, 2007

Textual Relationships

Most days I consider myself pretty lucky to live when and where I do. I've had access to the internet since I was in high school and the electronic web has shaped much of my world view, including how I communicate. I have friends who literally live all over the world and I can talk to them almost instantly. This is a big step up from the penpal I had in second grade who lived in Czechoslovakia and took 2 months to send a letter. The Czechs had cool stamps, but bad mail service.

One of the things that fascinates me about our modern plethora of ways to communicate is how different people are when they use diverse mediums. I have a very good friend who happens to be female. When we are together in a room you won't be able to hear yourself think. We talk, laugh, and provide constant feed-back to each other verbally. We rehash old jokes and stories and tell lies about the size of our craft piles. If you saw us together, you'd know we were friends.

On-line correspondence with her is totally different for me. She moved across the country and the easiest way for us to see each other is on-line but we generally fall to the level of cliches and comments about the weather. Monosyllabic answers to terse questions eventually just fade away to silence. Although I know she's an expert communicator we just don't have much to say to each other. If you looked at just our chat logs you'd think we were estranged relatives forced to sit at the table together on Thanksgiving.

I have another good friend who happens to be male. Our communication pattern is exactly the opposite. When we're in the same room together he may go hours without saying anything. He's very quiet, unless he's drinking, but that only brings him up to the level of smiling and small amounts of chit-chat. Even I sometimes wonder if he's mad at me because he speaks so infrequently, although he's always confused as to why I ask.

On-line he is a completely different person. He interacts both through text and email, and we can spend hours telling stories and creating characters for our role-playing game. While he'll never be mistaken for verbose, it's obvious that he's much more comfortable typing then actually talking to me.

I'm curious about the reasons behind this pair of communication splits. Why is she so much easier to talk to in person? Is it body language? Years of habit because I used to hang out at her house? My own stilted texting skill? Why do I have so much trouble getting him to say three words together to me in person but sometimes have to turn my phone off to get him to stop texting me? Is this a gender-related issue, a social class issue, or just these two different humans I happen to know?

As time goes on I anticipate seeing more electronic interaction in our education and in our businesses. While I'm enjoying the speed of the contact, I do think that we're losing the depth that human contact requires. Most people have heard that " multiple studies show that as much as 50-90% of communication is nonverbal." but I'm not sure we ever bother to see how that impacts the people on the other end of our writing. Possibly video conferencing and similar services will allow clear business accounting, but personal contacts may still be limited to whatever is cheapest and fastest. It's impossible to convey Shakespeare in l33t so I worry that much of the poetry and grace of English is already considered too old fashioned for public use. Sure, you can sort of translate the words, but part of the reason to use those specific terms was the sweep and grandeur of the sound. Grandeur isn't easy to get on a cell phone.

I'm going to continue my informal survey. I'll take little notes in my head when I talk to the same people both on-line and in-person and I'll try to answer my questions for myself. If I find anything earth shattering I'll let you know, but for now I'm going to work on improving all of my textual relationships. There are real people out there on the other end of those internets after all.