More Yes lyrics for the new year

Sad preacher nailed upon the coloured door of timeInsane teacher be there reminded of the rhymeThere'll be no mutant enemy we shall certifyPolitical ends as sad remains will dieReach out as forward tastes begin to enter you.I listened hard but could not seeLife tempo change out and inside meThe preacher trained in all to lose his nameThe teacher travels, asking to be shown the...

Some lyrics from Yes for the new year

Speak to me of summer Long winters longer than time can remember Setting up of other roads To travel on in old accustomed ways I still remember the talks by the water The proud sons and daughters That knew the knowledge of the land And spoke to me in sweet accustomed ways...

Superintellligence

This talk, by Maciej Cegłowski, which reached me through a number of links, is one of the most interesting things I've seen on the web in a long time. I warn you that it's long, but it's not boring. The topic is superintelligence, the idea that computer-based intelligence is growing so fast that it will soon be dominant in our society. The proponents of this idea think...

Favorite entries 2016

Not much dross this year, since the less important stuff got redirected to Facebo...

Another review of Charny's Men-at-Arms

http://deremilitari.org/2016/12/steven-muhlberger-charnys-men-at-arms-questions-concerning-the-joust-tournaments-and-war-hass/Steven Muhlberger, Charny’s Men-at-Arms: Questions Concerning The Joust, Tournaments and War (Hass)by CRAIG NAKASHIAN posted on DECEMBER 24, 2016Steven Muhlbergercharny’s men-at-arms: questions concerning the joust, tournaments and war(freelance,...

"A city in heaven, inhabited by angels."

That is what a Sudanese refugee called London, Ontario in a CBC broadcast of an event raising money for a foodbank. Yes, it seems rather unlikely to me, but it's all a matter of perspective. At the moment, at least most of us, are on the right end of the telesco...

Great Events in Religion, edited by Florin Curta and Andrew Holt

A while back I was recruited by Andrew Holt to write some articles for an encyclopedia of the history of religion.  I took him up on it, even though he was asking for articles not particularly close to my current research interests.  It was an interesting challenge.Just...

A discovery: Ilan Mitchell-Smith's Between Mars and Venus: Balance and Excess in the chivalry of the late-medieval English romance

A friend of mine alerted me to the existence of a PhD dissertation (Texas A&M) on chivalry and masculinity. I have just had a quick look, but the dissertation touches on some subjects of great interest: for instance, medieval masculinity being more complex than a bipolar spectrum...

The value of late medieval clothing

A review (in the Medieval Review) by Sharon Farmer of Daniel Lord Smail's Legal Plunder: Households and Debt Collection in Late Medieval Europe has this interesting fact about the value of clothing in the 14th and 25th centuries: Smail also concludes that moveable goods constituted...

Death by overexertion, an English duel of 1380

Some of you probably know that I am writing a source reader -- a book that combines medieval documents with modern commentary -- on the subject of judicial duels.  These were considered to be the most dramatic "deeds of arms" by contemporaries and modern re-enactors are very...