Daan comes to Fighter Practice!

(Again I forgot my camera!) We drove the Sunbeam to Fighter Practice.  I had become well-nigh annoying on this topic – ‘there’s FP on Sunday, remember?’  ‘You know you can wear anything along with your tunic that you want?’  ‘What will we bring to share at Grub and Garb?’ We got there very early, since the time had changed, and Geoffrey and PEG helped Daan get suited up.  He says it reminded him of gearing up for a jump.  (He used to jump out of perfectly good airplanes for the Air Force and loved it.  However, apparently the gearing up … Continue reading Daan comes to Fighter Practice!

The Bible in Longhand

Amazing. "Two years later, the monks agreed to an even larger project, commissioning Mr. Jackson to handwrite and illustrate the whole Old and New Testaments at a cost of $4.5 million (underwritten by profits from the sale of printed versions of the handwritten Bible and by the generosity of donors ranging from a Boy Scout troop to the Target Corporation). The project would require that Mr. Jackson collaborate with a team of several calligraphers, to whom he would teach a script that he had developed just for this purpose. And a commission of monks would have to approve each of … Continue reading The Bible in Longhand

Fundraising at Barnes and Noble

I spent several lovely hours pestering shoppers at our local B&N this past Saturday.  Dressed in 1300’s Magyar attire, near as I know it to be. Sorry, I forgot my camera.  (Again!) But I wore my newly finished drab cotton tunic with FIVE spools-worth of red embroidery at neck-hem-cuffs, my adorable plaid braid-covers, my very fashionable crocheted cap – which four people tried to buy off me.  When they start offering money, I’ll be in trouble.  (It’s from Romantic Knits, folks.  Six hours to finish it, stomach flu optional.) I’m very sorry I have no picture. I pestered shoppers with … Continue reading Fundraising at Barnes and Noble

Much better than Colonial House…

seems to be this series, Tales from the Green Valley, which is as yet UNAVAILABLE in U.S. formats.  Or maybe it is – I’m not really a media geek – yet.  I want to see this! How do you gauge gas mark 7 when you’re using a 17th century bread oven?                  Why did people 400 years ago save up their urine to help with the laundry?                    Why did farmers in Britain traditionally plough with oxen and not horses? These are just some of the questions five historians … Continue reading Much better than Colonial House…

China isn’t quite the Third World, is it?

With this second example, I’ve started a "There’s a Culture" category, in appreciation of successes in past history, which we would do well to simply copy, if not take as inspirational benchmarks. This one is from An Intimate History of Humanity, by Theodore Zeldin.  Again, highly recommended. "History is full of people who talked as though they were alive today, and yet it is assumed that the experience of the Celestial Empire was so exotic that it has no relevance to the West, which sees China simply as a developing country waiting to follow the Western path to prosperity.  But … Continue reading China isn’t quite the Third World, is it?

Assassin’s Meeting Ideas

UPDATED 11/13/06 The Assassin’s Meeting: As explained by Geoffrey (our Hospitaller), the idea is to provide everyone with someone else’s Victim Identity card at check-in.  During the day (but not on the field, so as to Keep It Holy – sanctuary! sanctuary!) everyone is trying to ‘assassinate’ his or her designated victim.  If I was assassinated, I would receive my own VI card from the evildoer, exchanging it for the VI card I’d previously been assigned, and would trot back over to Troll and report myself dead, by whose hand, and by what means.  Then, at Feast, awards would be … Continue reading Assassin’s Meeting Ideas

Tudor Planning

The previous post reminded me of something that I recently read in A Primer on Sustainable Building, which I’m reading for work. There’s a famous story told by the late epistemologist Gregory Bateson about New Colleg in Oxford, England.  The Great Hall had been built in the early 1600s with oak beams forty feet long and two feet thick.  Three hundred fifty years later, when they developed dry rot, a committee was formed to find replacement trees.  They searched but couldn’t find any (to fit the job).  A young don joined the committee and said, "Why don’t we ask the … Continue reading Tudor Planning

Tudor Efficiency

All right, so I can’t suppress the architect tendency.  Check this out, from Treehugger.com: Tudor houses, built at the time of Henry VIII, are more energy efficient than homes of today. According to a new study by British Gas, tudor properties with their solid construction and stout oak beams, leaked 10 cubic metres of warm air an hour vs. 15.1 for suburban mock-Tudors built in 1960. The houses were constructed for the rich and were the work of skilled artisans. They used wattle and daub, an early form of plastering, which was inserted wet, but forms an almost airtight barrier … Continue reading Tudor Efficiency

November Biz Meeting

I was particularly excited about this week’s FP, because there were no major conflicts with other events, and everyone assured me that turnout would be better.  And I was curious about how the organizational structure of PG would work. So there were fighters, and selling of armor. (As usual, click on the pics to make them bigger.) David and PEG look over Alicia’s armor for sale and some fighting… Look at all those fighters! Raven, PEG, Thomas, and Kail …some archery… Juliana practicing archery Check out the manic glee on that face! Free fabric!  (Thanks Juliana!) Is that a ‘glave’ … Continue reading November Biz Meeting

Second Fighter Practice

Not many people turned out today, because of Gatalop running concurrently.But there was David, and Juliana with her youngest child, and Nick with his chain mail project. I should have gotten a pic of him working on the links.  He has a jig that fits in a small backpack, whose purpose is to wind wire (what sort of wire?) into a coil – looks like a spring.  Then he slips the coil off its dowel, and snips each ring away from the coil. Continue reading Second Fighter Practice