Jack Vance, fantasist extraordinaire, is dead.

 Will McLean sends me sad but not unexpected news: One of my favorite writers, Jack Vance, is dead. He was nearly 100 years old. Here's an article that talks about his work.My own take on Vance: when I was a kid and read his stuff, I thought it was intriguing exotic. And indeed...

Frederik Pohl goes to war

Frederik Pohl, best known as a science fiction author and editor, wanted to do his part in World War II. He was trained as a weatherman and sent off to support the US air fleet. And then: The rumbling and grumbling roar of B-24 motors was coming from every one of those takeoff strips that sprawled over what had once been Italian farm fields and olive groves. We weathermen just...

Freelance Academy Press and La Belle Companie demos at Kalamazoo, May 2013

Freelance Academy Press, which publishes the Deeds of Arms series that I edit, sponsored two sessions on Western medieval martial arts and historical combat at Kalamazoo's Congress of medieval studies earlier this month. One of them, a reenactment of a judicial duel in the Italian tradition was videoed and can be seen here. Likewise, La Belle Companie, which re-creates a late...

The Battle Hymn of the First Crusade

People often have a hard time seeing how the ethos of the Crusades can be justified in the light of certain seemingly pacifistic statements attributed to Jesus Christ in the Gospels.Why not think about this in a different way by looking at a religiously inspired song of a more recent time?Comments welcome. Do you find this strange, exotic, and if so why? Is this part of your personal...

Beautiful place names in the northern seas

I was away from home for a while, and restricted to using mobile devices. I find it rather aggravating to write a blog post of any substantial nature using the mobiles. Back at home again, I can now conveniently share with you a great entry in a blog goes back to my early days of...

Kalamazoo Medieval Congress, 2013

I really enjoyed myself.What was most remarkable was the number of sessions based on re-enactment or experimental archaeology.Activities  on site included:SmeltingDrinking ale and mead brewed with historic methodsDressing a person in armor starting with the underwearA late medieval armor  fashion showThis doesn't include discussions of activities off site.Peak moment:...

Italy!

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What's wrong with Niall Ferguson

I have had a low opinion of Niall Ferguson ever since 2003, when he was academic hitman for the pro-Iraqi invasion interests. Following his most recent creepy outburst, Juan Cole has explained just what's wrong with the man better than I could: Harvard historian Niall Ferguson apologized Saturday for having said that economist John Maynard Keyes did not care about future generations...

Shiraz Timelapse

Over at Juan Cole's Informed Comment, this portrait of Shiraz in Iran. What gorgeous gardens and monumental buildings!...

This was segregation, 2

One of the great racist lies that has distorted North American politics since 1865 is that African-Americans, once they got there formal freedom from exploitation by the masters, suddenly turned into welfare bums, exploiting in their turn the story of past injustices to get handouts from the government. But it would be a brave person who could honestly say that the injustices have...

The mysterious slash

Anne Curzan in the Chronicle of Higher Education:Two weeks ago, one student brought up the word slash as an example of new slang, and it quickly became clear to me that many students are using slash in ways unfamiliar to me. In the classes since then, I have come to the students with follow-up questions about the new use of slash. Finally, a student asked, “Why are you so interested...

Green paint and other good things

Here in the Near North April and even early May can be pretty dry.The huge overlay of winter snow melts off, but that is not enough to start things growing. For that you need rain, and we often don't get rain for weeks at a time. April showers, forsooth! "April showers bring May flowers" is like a cruel joke imported from a different climactic zone.Eventually, the rain does come,...