Getting Medieval

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of

It's not often you get to recreate a scene from one of your favorite films, but tonight, a mysterious package showed up on my porch, inside a Home Depot Box. Huh?

I order lots of stuff from various people and never have any idea what I'll get at any one time. But as soon as I saw the shredded paper I realized what this was. There was another box inside the bigger box. When I opened that there was an object wrapped carefully in paper towels. I began to giggle. I ran for my husband. "Hey!" I called to him. "You want to see what dreams are made of?"

"Am I going to need a drink for this?" he asked.

"Just get in here. It's not everyday we can recreate a movie scene."

I was giddy as I tore off the wrapping just like they did in the film...and there it was. My ebay find. A Maltese Falcon, a reproduction from the 1941 movie. We turned it and were tempted to take a knife to it just to make sure it wasn't jewel-encrusted under its black covering--but we refrained. I laughed a Sidney Greenstreet laugh and danced with it. It's one of my favorite films and the book became the chart for me to navigate the writing of my first medieval noir novel. Yup, it is the stuff that dreams are made of and darned fun to have around.

   

Shroud of Turin Has Mishap in The Onion

 

That's what happens when you don't seperate your whites from your colors, or your relics from the other laundry. Read it here at The Onion. 

Sword-fighting for the Kids

That's right. The next time the kids come up to you with a, "Mom, I'm BORED!" you can hand them a blade and say, "Just go outside and fight with your sister!"

It's the Royal Armoury at Leeds at it again, offering a chance for the ankle biters in your life to have at it. With wooden swords, though. Check it out here.   

If that is not to your tastes, the older crowd can enjoy a good-old fashioned joust for Easter. "This Easter sees the return of the Sword of Honour four day joust leading up to the grand final on Bank Holiday Monday at 2.30pm. There will be two shows each day at 12.30pm and 2.30pm, bookings for these shows are now being taken by the bookings team."

AND, they've got an exhibition of the Chronicles of Froissart, THE firsthand account of the doings of the Hundred Years War. That would be keen to see. They also offer classes on calligraphy and all sorts of other things. If you find yourself in England in the spring, check it out and send me pictures! For more info, go to their web site. 
 

Battle of Agincourt on YouTube

And here's the Battle of Agincourt performed by the Agincourt Alliance and, I think, narrated by--God help us--William Shatner.

See it here. 

More Medieval Animations

Here is another YouTube animation. Not sure what to make of this one. It looks a little like scraps from various video games. It is eerily devoid of people until near the end where there are an awful lot of armored knights tramping on foot through the rainy countryside. For amusement purposes only. See it here.

The second is just fun little medieval digital clip art.

Index Card

Is this not cool? You can make your own here.

Pure Silliness

 

Ten Top Trivia Tips about The middle ages!

1. The middle ages is the male seed of a flower blossom which has been gathered and treated by bees.

2. It takes forty minutes to hard-boil the middle ages.

3. Humans have 46 chromosomes, peas have 14, and the middle ages has 7!

4. A bride should wear something old, something new, something borrowed, and the middle ages.

5. Two thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in the middle ages.

6. In Ancient Egypt, people wore glittery eyeshadow made from the crushed shells of the middle ages.

7. It's bad luck to whistle near the middle ages!

8. Contrary to popular belief, the middle ages is not successful at sobering up a drunk person, and in many cases it may actually increase the adverse effects of alcohol.

9. Fish travel in schools, but whales travel in the middle ages!

10. Early thermometers were filled with the middle ages instead of mercury.

So what the hell was that, you must be saying. It's a little trivia generator found here. Just a bit of silliness to get us into the holiday mood. Happy Fourth, where we made our fatal mistake by breaking away from England. Any chance they'll take us back?

March of the Librarians

I love librarians. One of my earliest childhood memories was going to our public library and going through the children's section. The librarians were always stern, authority figures to me. And they knew so much (this before computers, ladies and gentlemen!) Reference librarians knew their stuff. When I first started writing and researching, I dearly needed them. Anyway, when I was little, I was always amazed when I went to the library. All those books, and I can take them home--for free! What an excellent idea! I fear that younger people aren't making use of libraries as they once did. The use of the internet, Wikipedia, and the like, would seem to discourage the use of libraries and just browsing, as the same has done for browsing in bookstores. I am grateful that I have instilled this browsing gene in my own teenaged son, who still enjoys going to actual brick and mortar bookstore and is a happy traveler when we venture to the L.A. Times Festival of Books at UCLA each spring. But I still worry.

The bookstore issue is a worry for those owners of independant bookstores. When NPR promotes a book, it's great news for the author (I hope to be so beknighted as well), but when their website offers the book on an amazon link, many saw red. Here's a story about that here.

At this point, I should apologize to my own bookstore friends out there for my own amazon links. I'd be happy to put other bookstore links on this site. How about it, bookstore owners? Friends, Romans, countrymen, send me your links!   

Here's an amusing YouTube video link about our beloved librarians that spoofs March of the Penguins.

The Toll of the Poll

 

Remember the Poll? It's that little grey box on the lefthand column. No, further down. There, that's it. Well, we haven't looked at the poll for a while, and as expected for an unpublished guy, Crispin has fallen behind. But not to fear. Crispin is getting a running start and will be leaping into the fray once more, something he is wont to do and more often than not, gets him into no end of trouble. Danger, murder, and dames. No matter what the century, crime stays the same. If you haven't read the first chapter of Veil of Lies, go to it. Go now. I'll wait. In the meantime, I'll talk to these other guys.

We're just about ready to send Veil out the door with my shiny new blurbs. We've scrubbed our faces and cleaned under our nails, so I hope that we make a good show of it when this new manuscript begins to make the rounds. Not too many rounds. I have my eye on one or two publishers in particular.

So tip one back for old Crispin. Give the poor guy a break. He probably dressed as well as this fellow above when he was still a knight. But times are hard when you're an ex-knight and have to make due on your own on the mean streets of fourteenth century London.

   

Scribe's Lament

I don't normally do this on this blog but this was amusing (and I've nothing else today, so...) For anyone who has ever had computer problems, this YouTube is for you.