Diary

[jducoeur]

Okay, time to quickly run down the week since getting back from Florida.

Tuesday was Low Company. This month's topic was Western Chess Variations. It was, sadly, a small meeting this time -- only six of us there, and only four playing. But that was enough for a really kickass game of Chess of the Four Seasons. This was a major hoot, because all three of the other players are experienced Diplomacy players (and I have a pretty good handle on that style of play), so the interplay got very, very complex. Took a long time, but it was deliciously strange throughout, with lots of comments along the lines of, "You really don't want to take my bishop, because then I'll take your knight, but if you take *her* pawn instead, I'll refrain from taking your knight next turn!" Much deeper level of play than I'm used to in this game.

The only serious negative of the evening was slipping on the stairs in Porter Square station, and whomping my tailbone, but hard. I don't think it's broken, just bruised something fierce. Still hurts unpredictably, though.

Wednesday was dance practice, but was a pretty low-energy night for me, especially due to the aching butt. But it was good to get a little dancing in. And I swung by ladysprite's, to drop off the stuffed flamingo I picked up in Sanibel for her. It's terribly cute, in a really goofy sort of way.

Friday night's date this week was Sato. Having declared that I was feeling like Chinese, I wound up getting sushi anyway. But what the heck, that's what that restaurant is good for.

Saturday was the preliminary moving party for tpau and learnedax. This round was just the Baronial stuff, which fills most of their basement. It was a cute little crew, just seven of us, but it was enough people and cars to get the stuff moved in a few hours. It also represents the first step of the Get Rid of Superfluous Gold Key project -- I gather that hfcougar went through it, picked out a little bit that was worthwhile, and the rest is being scrapped. (Most of the Gold Key is in Seamus' garage, but some leftovers were left here. Overall, the plan is to get rid of at least 80% of it -- we have an *insane* amount of Gold Key, most of it crap.)

After that was a rather neat interview. One of the Duncharlatans, Kaitlin, is doing her thesis on a 13th century tournament in which the participants recreated scenes from Arthurian legend in the course of it. So I'm putting her in touch with a variety of folks from the SCA, both to talk about the cultural context of the day and the re-enactment/re-creation mindset in general. She wanted to interview me about the SCA, to get a better understanding of how the club really works, and we wound up wandering all over the map, in a wide-ranging chat about not just the SCA, but all the other weird clubs, the differences between us and both re-enactment and renfairs, why people *do* this stuff, and so on. I talked almost continuously for an hour and a half, and enjoyed myself thoroughly.

Today was the main moving day. Lots more people, lots more vehicles, *lots* more stuff to move. I wound up running up and down stairs for much of five solid hours, and am now thoroughly beat. But we got everything moved into their new apartment, which is really quite nice. Afterwards, we went out with tpau, learnedax, ladysprite and umbran to the Atrium Mall, got some takeout cheesecake and sat downstairs comforting our aching muscles with sugar.

Comments

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

One of the Duncharlatans, Kaitlin, is doing her thesis on a 13th century tournament in which the participants recreated scenes from Arthurian legend in the course of it.

You did point her at Muhlberger's two books, and his online translation of Froissart (or baronadhemar's translation as well, right?

[jducoeur]

Actually, I didn't pretend to know what the appropriate sources were (having paid relatively little attention to the subject), so I pointed her over to the folks at Chronique. As someone who *has* paid more attention to the period-combat side, do you think that will get her in the right direction, or should I send her to him separately?

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I put my hand in the air. Followed quickly by Steffan, Adhemar, Finnvarr, Sir Brian Price (who created Chronique) and never ever ever forget Galleron de Crecy.

[jducoeur]

I pointed her at Brian and Steffan specifically, as entrees into the combat and heraldic sides who can give her further pointers. I'll ask her if she would like more specifics than that. (I honestly don't know how much depth she wants in this side of things.) If so, that list seems to make sense...

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I also figured if I pointed you-as-bibliophile at some cool books on the topic, you'd want to know. :-)

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

I came away with four tubs (well, three tubs and a really nice basket - I'm keeping the basket). Three of those are mine or things I'm potentially interested in, and one is things that might be useful to someone else someday and were too nice to just toss. There was also a decent amount of feast gear, which I'm going to decide what to do with after I have time to go through it.

The not-for-me tub and the stuff I reject from the other tubs, and probably most of the feast gear, is destined to travel to the swap meet I'm holding sometime late this semester. I'm hoping that's also what we can do with the superfluous Gold Key.

The portion that got left for the trash consisted mainly of things that were musty/moldy; things that were torn, unfinished or ridiculously sized so as to not fit anyone ever; and serious crimes against taste which needed to be disposed of so that no one would ever accidentally wear them.

[jducoeur]

Is a goodness -- sounds like you're doing all the right things. Thanks for taking this particular bull by the horns.

The "ridiculously sized" reminds me of The Purple Hideousness. This was a mind-bogglingly huge dress, made of artificial shiny purple satin, that used to the in Fenmere's garb stash way back when. No one knew where it came from, or why we had it -- I've never known anyone in the SCA who was large enough to use it. The only use we ever made of it was draping over one of the workers in the school cafeteria (who was built like a football defenseman) during one of their occasional medieval theme nights. I *think* we threw the thing out afterwards, although it might have wound up making its way into Baronial Gold Key...

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

These were quite the opposite - dresses made for someone so thin as to make ladysprite look like a football player, yet somehow 6 and a half feet tall. Even with much stretching and speculation matildalucet and I couldn't visualize it.