Huh.
Didn’t know I had a Mistress.
Hey, it’s more entertaining than Googling for “Rick James” or “Dakao Do”.
This came up b/c I ran into a guy I’ve worked with, and he said he Googled my phone number. Saw I was the Houston contact person for Schola Saint George (which study group web page really needs to be updated, but it’s currently not within my convenient control). Turns out that he’s Etienne in the SCA, with a cadet named Delphina. He played for something like 17 years, was cadet-brothers with Conner, knows David, attended KWAR 2004 (same as me), and with his wife is big into the humanistic aspects of Renaissance history. We talked about things like teaching classes, dealing with politics in order to achieve our ends, and etc. I mentioned Iolo’s book tip on On Killing, and Etienne said it sounded just like Iolo’s sort of thing. He then recommended Geoffrey Charny’s Book of Chivalry, which sounds like it gives a medieval perspective on Grossman’s points in On Killing. In a time when nobles still composed a vital and active core of any military endeavor, how did such men and their retainers confront battle and death?
Which brings up a big “Why?” Why am I so fascinated with military history, soldiers’ accounts, martial art, shooting (itself a martial art) — the study of violence in all its myriad forms?
I’m not crazy or traumatized, I’m not a particularly strong gun ownership advocate, or obsessed with building a shelter and stocking it against the day when the revolution comes. I enjoy doing theater and still-life photography, reading romances, and watching sentimental movies with good writing.
There was a young man from England who wrote a letter to a World War II veteran. The Englishman wrote, “You make me want to be a better person.”
And that’s it, really. I’ve thought that to myself, in my more concise moments of private contemplation (which does not include now). When I’m mired most deeply in chickenshit, I try to remind myself that each incident is so much less troubling than being splattered with the brains and shit of guys I’ve known closely for three years. If they got it done instead of whining, why can’t I? To do the job, big or small, without excuses but also without becoming crushed by guilt when things go sideways… That’s all there is. I, of course, do not follow this perfectly — or even fairly well. But the 101st Airborne Division got its job done on D-Day with only 10-15% of the men landing anywhere even vaguely close (within 20 miles) of their objectives. So I too can embrace and cope with the inefficiencies of being human (they are parameters, not obstacles).
The danger, of course, that many veterans then and now go through is, to take Guy Sajer’s example, why bother? For a man who learned to drive by double-clutching on a poorly-maintained 17-ton German tank without synchros and mired in the autumn rasputitsa, putting up with some puffed-up French driving instructor’s chickenshit pales in comparison and yet frustrates to no end.
So once we’ve gained perspective, the trick is to not become lost in perspectives too large or numerous.
I think I was first exposed to these ideas in high school. I didn’t recognize this Grand Unification of Perspective theory for what it was at the time…
People don’t think about the universe much. Heck, how often do we really think about what it means to live in a country with a quarter billion other people? We run in our little circles of hundreds or thousands of coworkers, friends, and etc. We certainly don’t think about the inconsequentiality of our 80 years (plus or minus) on Earth compared to 5000 years of recorded history, much less the 100,000s or billions (depending on your sources) of years the planet has been around. And when my classmates and I pondered this in high school, we all got this feeling of helplessness. What is one little organism against the tide of stars and planets which expand and collapse in eternal, fiery cycles of birth and rebirth?
It wasn’t until college that I learned the antidote for our reaction: My time on Earth matters to me. When people say, “Who cares? What does it matter?”, the answer (or just one of many) is, “Well, my life damn well matters to me!” A little selfishness combined with a little oneness with the infinite multiverse.
Tying back into personal responsibility, that means that I should take care of what’s set in front of me, then keep on completing new tasks that arise, until the overall job is done. Be aware of, but don’t obsess over the big picture. If other things happen (screwups, etc.), deal with them and don’t let them sidetrack my work.
And, of course, as soldiers have done since time immemorial, we can bitch about it after it’s over. :)
I know this got repetitive. Just wanted to put down all the ways I’ve learned this lesson since high school, before senility steals any more of my memories away. :P
Ξ May 1st, 2005 | → Comments Off | ∇ History, Metalworking |
At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I finally got all my ducks in a row for the first time. I had a good camera, an excellent and varied exhibit on arms and armor, and the knowledge of both what I wanted to capture and how to go about capturing it. The result was 263 pictures, only ~30 of which were unrelated to that exhibit. There were two field harnesses, IIRC, one of which I do recall b/c it provided me with a valuable shot of the sollerets. I’d correctly guessed how the pointed toe variety (mimicking turnshoes) are constructed, but had never seen anything to confirm my hypothesis — until now. I was able to get some good angles I’ve never found in books or others’ photos (though Grant did an excellent job with his pictures at the Museo Militare in Barcelona, regardless of his limited — but obviously sufficient — experience in armoring). I also got a good set of side, front, and 3/4 profile pictures of the helms and some breastplates. By and large, the helms were a fairly typically representative 16th century selection, as were the full harnesses. My one minor disappointment was that none of the harnesses had a steel strap and post with catch (sickle hook or pin secured by chain to the strap) means of mounting the breast and back over the gorget. I first saw such an assembly at the Chicago Art Institute back in 2002 (?), but my pictures of it are dismal.
Still, between Grant’s pics and my pics, I have the beginnings of a bloody awesome photo collection. Add in Mark’s pictures from Les Invalides in Paris (taken on his honeymoon — thanks, Mark!), and you have one excited little boy.
Quality of photos still needs work (primarily to minimize display case glare), but angles are good. Subject matter could stand broadening — e.g. all the munitions-grade stuff in the Austrian Landhaus or in the backroom collections of the New York Met. I’m sure there are better collections out there, but I haven’t seen them.
I also spent an enjoyable 15 minutes talking with Pierre Terjanian, the Associate Curator for Arms and Armor. He happened to open a display case while I was in the gallery, and took the time out to describe some unique, regional features and elements of construction for a set of cannons for the arm and a breastplate. He directed me to some further reading, when he found out that I’ve read Dr. Williams’ book on metallurgical examinations of medieval armor specimens.
For those who’ve read this far with interest, there was a nice curiosity on display — a swordbreaker lantern shield. I didn’t manage to capture all three layers of its construction, but it had:
* A flat rim (like an aerobee or a flat donut) dagged with deep incisions for trapping blades. All edges rolled (must’ve been a bitch).
* A layer underneath, radially pleated like a parasol. This had a regular and dense pattern of small (.25″ x 1.5″?), rectangular slits in a radial pattern.
* Finally, a flat layer underneath the second layer, with a very dense herringbone pattern of slits smaller than the second layer’s slits. This was hard to see, even in person (without actually getting my hands on it).
All three layers were mounted at mid-forearm on the full-length cuff of a long-cuffed gauntlet. There was a small (1.5″ diameter?) porthole in the rim of the first and second layers at a point perpendicular to and above (if you hold your left arm horizontal, palm facing right) the middle of the forearm. This was the only spot that exposed the third layer directly. The riding gauntlet itself was fairly typical, though it had a threaded hole (5/8″ diameter?) right over the middle knuckle. The caption said this was intended to receive a dagger with a threaded pommel or tang. I’m not too clear on how to use a dagger that’s pointing perpendicularly from the back of my hand, though. [edit: it has since been pointed out to me that the knucklebow curls forward farther than I thought over the knuckles, meaning the dagger projects from the hand like an Indian katar knife.]
Helpful picture to follow when A) I get around to resizing it / them (I took 4) / other cool pics for bandwidth-friendliness, B) I’m on a high-speed connection, C) the planets align all nice and pretty.
I just realized that, since I have tentative plans to attend WMAW 2005 in Racine, I should take an extra day to revisit the Chicago Art Institute and spend 2-4 hours getting better pics of their arms and armor gallery. Excellent.
Well. Fencing practice was invigorating. I practiced and free-sparred in my current harness (three-quarters plate armor — everything but the greaves (shin protection)) for the first time. Pretty enlightening — and burdensome.
(Keep in mind that this entire entry refers to an activity which takes up at most 3.6% of my average week, where sleep and work take up about 30% each, and school about 13%. Just a geek’s way of putting things in perspective for you, dear readers who may question my sense of priorities. The average Joe probably puts 35% in sleep, and 24% in work.)
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Ξ January 2nd, 2004 | → Comments Off | ∇ History, School |
I recently had the chance to load and fire a pair of black powder pistols — one percussion cap and one flintlock. In the course of an afternoon (several hours) at an outdoor range, my old friend Ben Brumfield and I managed to fire off perhaps 30 rounds. Most of the time was spent figuring out how to reload and clean the weapons between firings. Our first few shots were ambitiously made at 25 yards. Having utterly failed to put the fear of God into our unheeding cardboard quarry, we closed distance to 15 yards, after which point we managed to put perhaps 3 rounds into a 2′x4′ paper beastie.
I know I’m not totally incompetent, having shot a .45 and 9mm Sig Sauer before. It might have helped if the two black powder weapons were properly sighted, of course. :P
All in all, an exhilarating afternoon. I came back with luciferous blackened and yellowed fingertips that didn’t wash out for days.
[Warning: blog contains anger sufficient to upset a Jedi’s digestion.]
So a couple of weeks ago, I was poking around, and spent an afternoon reading news.bbc.co.uk. Today, I found an interesting article about Saudi Arabia’s status quo.
It doesn’t solve our silly beef with Iraq, but it does highlight the overly simplified attitude we as a society tend to take towards the ragheads. It certainly seems that a good deal of the Middle East’s tension would go away if those peoples were shown / taught the means and infrastructure to compete economically, and consequently bring about a higher standard of living and education for their people. A man who has lots isn’t willing to risk it in war or revolution, but the man who has nothing has nothing to lose.
But we don’t collectively seem inclined to take such an enlightened stance. (And some of the enlightened bits of our collective may have a take on stances different from mine…)
Then I thought, “Hrm, what has the average well-informed American read in recent times about the Saudis, anyway?”
So I polled CNN’s world news section. That had nothing on Saudi Arabia, so I did a keyword search on the site. Last mention: 5/18/03, wherein U.S. lawmakers criticized the Saudis for not fully committing to the U.S.’s self-aggrandizing campaign against hapless Middle-Eastern victims of the U.S.’s past policies. And yes, I’m only referring to the Iraqis and their government’s past 2 decades’ involvement with the U.S. I know that we can blame many of the Middle East’s oldest problems on those pesky steppes nomads, the Seljuk and Ottoman Turks. The upstart U.S. can’t claim to have oppressed the Middle East for five centuries, crushing the Arabs’ flowering civilization of sciences and arts. Don’t let anyone tell you that we or the Crusaders were responsible for the current state of the Middle East. :)
We’re certainly not helping matters, though — that’s for sure.
Um, I’ll get off my Ottoman rant now.
So I don’t know if American news actually is on par with the BBC for fair and well-rounded, meaningful reporting. I’ve heard lots of self-proclaimed enlightened people tell me that the U.S. media is a joke, is too sensationalistic, and too fluffy. This is certainly borne out by my random encounters with MSNBC or CNN. But who knows? Maybe the WSJ and NY Times are actually intelligent.
All I know is that I always come away feeling better — better informed and better cheered — after reading the Brits’ take on world news.
American news just makes me feel empty. Look at our president, see how stupid he is! But don’t mind how cleverly he and his political machine have implemented many of the key points on their party agenda, all the while apologizing for his irrelevant pronunciation goofs.
Not that this is really news to me or you. Oh, look at me — my social consciousness has been newly awakened, and I feel motivated to go out and make a difference.
Oh, wait. I’m not gonna overturn any governments or institute reforms. I’m not going to save whales or feed hungry Somalian children.
There’s nothing that makes should into must, despite what our more extreme elements of society say.
I’ve done useful things for society and myself, and I will continue to do so. I may admire and adopt others’ causes, but I won’t let ‘em guilt me into adoption. Anymore, that is. We’ll see.
Can anyone recommend some good news sources? Joseph recommended some good ones a few years back to me, but that was two mail readers and two computers ago. My preference is for nothing extreme (conservative or liberal).
I bought a pot today.
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Wow, I’m still sore from Sunday’s 12-hour practice. I think it was the cartwheels and crawls up and down 6 tennis courts that really did me in. :)
Two classes down, and one to go. Think I turned in a fair performance on my Corporate Finance exam, but we’ll see what Dr. Alexander thinks of it.
I’ve been thinking a lot on What It All Means lately. Now don’t go thinking I’m about to join someone’s congregation or become a disciple of our holy lord Gord on earth. I’ve been reading Charles Kimball’s papers on Europe and a paper on the application of Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.
Fascinating, really. If that paper ever gets published, I’ll let you know.
Call me a confused Confucianist, but it seems like it doesn’t really matter why we’re here on this earth so long as we realize what brought us here, what we do, and where we’re headed.
In other words, remember your place (in the perspective of all human history up to the moment of now), and leave the world a little richer than you found it. How trite it sounds. And yet it’s so difficult for many people to adhere to.
The trouble in applying this trite little bit of advice is that people tend to externalize the problems or goals that should be found within themselves. “I didn’t ask for this!” “It’s not my fault!” “I’m not responsible!”
Enough soap-boxing. Maybe we should just ask, “What would Brian Boitano do?”
But speaking of internalizing duties and goals… A lot of tasks got elbowed aside in the past weeks to make room for the ACM workshop and final exams. Now I have to rediscover my groove and get to ‘em all. Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go… :)
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